HI, how should I pick my mandarins. They are lovely and orange, juicy, but when I try to pick them they're really hard to pull off the branch. I can only pull them off leaving some mandarin skin behind! Does that mean they're not ripe (they seem to be) or should I clip them off with secataurs. We have a fantastic crop on a small tree that's about 6 years old . Thanks.

Hi Alison, when your mandarins are completely orange with no green left on the skin and soft to touch when held in the palm of your hand they are ready to pick, especially if they are sweet and juicy. The best way to pick them is with secateurs or snips, by snipping the stalk (which is very short), you don’t spoil the fruit, the fruit keeps longer with the stalk intact and this causes less damage to the tree. Mandarins don’t keep on the tree like other citrus do. Early mandarins should be harvested as soon as the skin is orange. Later fruiting varieties can be left on the tree for up to 6 weeks, but not too long as the fruit flesh becomes ‘dry’. Lianne.