Ruby Red Grapefruit for Sale - Buying & Growing Guide

Planting and Care

by Mary Van Keuren | Gardener (30+ Years Experience) – last update on May 12, 2022

Planting instructions

Site your Ruby Red grapefruit sapling where it will get full sun, in well-drained soil. Unpot your tree, and tease out any encircling roots, which will girdle the tree and eventually kill it. Dig a hole that’s as deep as the root ball and twice as wide. Throw in a few handfuls of well-rotted manure or compost, and place the tree on top of it. Fill in around the tree with good-quality topsoil, tamping down as you go to eliminate air pockets. Water thoroughly. Apply a 2- to 3-inch layer of organic mulch, such as bark chips, around the root zone to conserve water, making sure it doesn’t touch the trunk.

Watering and nutrients

For the first year after planting, water your sapling every week, or more frequently if you’re experiencing very hot or dry weather. After the first year, you can taper back on watering. Give the tree a drink whenever the soil 2 inches below the surface is dry. Container-grown trees will need more frequent watering. Fertilize your Ruby Red grapefruit tree with a well-balanced, slow-release product intended for citrus trees. Feed throughout the growing season, as the package directions indicate.

Pollination

Grapefruit is monoecious, or self-pollinating; with a single tree you should still be able to harvest fruit. The trees have small creamy-white flowers that cluster at the end of branches. Bees and other insects visit the fragrant flowers and move pollen from the male to the female reproductive organs in the flowers. If your Ruby Red grapefruit tree lives indoors, you can help along the pollination process by swirling a small paintbrush in the flower to pick up pollen and placing it on another flower’s stigma.

Pruning

Prune your Ruby Red grapefruit tree after you harvest the fruit. Cut off any suckers that appear around the base of the trunk, as well as any dead, diseased, or damaged branches. Cut off branches that are rubbing against each other as well. If you are growing your grapefruit in a container, you can prune annually to control growth. When making a cut, terminate the branch where it meets with another branch, rather than at the tip.

Pests, diseases, and animals

Although a healthy Ruby Red grapefruit tree should be able to fend off most pest invasions or diseases, it doesn’t hurt to be on the lookout for insects such as spider mites, thrips, and scale insects. These can be handled with insecticidal soap or dormant oil spray. There are several diseases that are common with grapefruits, including anthracnose, which causes irregular spots on leaves and fruit and can be treated with a fungicide. Citrus black spot is another fungal disease that causes, not surprisingly, black spots on leaves. Apply fungicide and prune out all infected branches, destroying them to avoid spreading the disease.

Harvesting

Grapefruit is generally ready to harvest in the fall months. Harvest them by hand when at least half of the peel has turned to yellow and the fruit feels firm and heavy. Interestingly enough, you can leave the fruit on the tree through winter and it will only get sweeter. Leaving it, however, will mean that you have a smaller harvest the next year.

Achieving maximum results

It’s hard to believe that you could harvest grapefruits in, say, chilly New England, but by growing your Ruby Red grapefruit tree in a container, you can do just that. Choose a pot that is roughly twice the size of the tree’s root ball, with large drainage holes in the bottom. You will need to water your grapefruit more frequently than you would if it was in the ground and be sure to fertilize it regularly throughout the growing season. Bring your tree inside if the temperatures dip to around 20 degrees Fahrenheit, and place it in your sunniest window for the winter. Turn the tree regularly so all sides get some sun. Wipe down the leaves every month or so to keep them free from dust, and occasionally mist the leaves to increase humidity.

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