November opens the California orange year, when the first navels ripen, and late navels keep coming into June. Valencias overlap from March and sell through September. Cara Caras (November to January) and blood oranges (December to February) are the winter specialties. October is the one month with little California fruit in stores.
Those store windows come from UC Agriculture and Natural Resources' publication on oranges, written with UC Riverside's postharvest specialist. The ripening dates for single varieties come from the Givaudan Citrus Variety Collection at UC Riverside, down the road from Redlands in the Inland Empire. Riverside isn't where most navels grow, though. The 2026–27 navel survey drew 437 of its 759 sample groves from Tulare County alone, so a San Joaquin Valley grove can run a little ahead of or behind these dates.
When are oranges in season, month by month?
| Month | What's ripe in California | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| January | Washington navel, Cara Cara, Moro and Tarocco blood oranges | Every winter type is ripe at once |
| February | Washington navel (holding on the tree), blood oranges; Lane Late and Powell begin | Last month of the Riverside blood orange window |
| March | Late navels; first Valencias | The two crops begin to overlap |
| April | Late navels, Valencias | |
| May | Late navels, Valencias | |
| June | Last late navels, Valencias | Navels leave most stores after June |
| July | Valencias | Our marmalade Valencias are picked in summer |
| August | Valencias from the tree | Green patches on ripe fruit are common |
| September | Last Valencias | Store supply thins out |
| October | Very little California fruit | The gap between crops |
| November | Fukumoto and Washington navels, Cara Cara | Fukumoto matures 3–4 weeks ahead of Washington |
| December | Washington navel, Cara Cara; Moro and Tarocco begin | Holiday navels |
At Riverside, Washington navel, Fukumoto and Cara Cara mature from November to January. The late navels Lane Late and Powell follow from February to June, Moro and Tarocco blood oranges run December to February, and Valencia runs March to July. The August and September Valencias in the table are fruit growers have left hanging past that window, which the variety tolerates well.
Between the last of those Valencias and the first Fukumotos sits October, the only real gap in the year.
Why the navel season stretches into June
No single navel lasts seven months; the season is a relay. Fukumoto, a Japanese selection brought to California in 1983, reaches legal maturity three to four weeks before the Washington navel, and the Washington, once ripe, will hang on the tree in good condition for months. Lane Late matures a month or more behind the Washington and holds well into spring before its quality slips.
Growers have planted for that relay. The 2026 acreage survey by CDFA and USDA counted roughly 110,000 acres of navels and related oranges, with 35,242 acres of Washington navel and 10,325 of Cara Cara. The relay varieties are smaller: 6,814 acres of Powell, 6,343 of Lane Late, 6,116 of Fukumoto. Blood oranges are a sliver at 1,779 acres. Heirloom navels go into our Navel Orange Marmalade, the winter half of our orange year.
The summer orange
Valencias take their time. UC ANR notes that a Valencia needs 12 to 15 months from fruit set to maturity, against 7 to 12 for a navel, which means a Valencia tree can carry two crops at once: ripe fruit ready to pick and next year's small green oranges on the same branches.
Ripe Valencias often "re-green" in summer, the UC publication explains, as the air and soil warm. UC's home garden page is blunter: a Valencia may be greenish and still fully ripe. A green shoulder on an August orange tells you nothing bad about the juice.
We wait for that summer fruit for our Valencia Orange Marmalade. By then the acidity in our Valencias has softened a great deal, and the jar tastes of honeyed orange rather than sharp juice.
Color is a poor guide to the season
In autumn, UC ANR explains, cooling air and soil can turn navel peel from green to orange before the fruit inside is mature; most navels actually mature in winter to early spring. So a bright orange October navel may be the least ready fruit in the bin.
Picking doesn't fix it, because oranges don't ripen further once they're off the tree. That is why the commercial season opens by test, not by color. CDFA's California Citrus Program presses juice from navel oranges and checks it against a state maturity standard, and five counties, Riverside among them, run mandatory inspection programs. For a backyard tree, UC's advice is simpler: taste one.
How the Florida orange season compares
Florida's calendar starts earlier and ends sooner. UF/IFAS Extension lists the state's seasons as navel and Hamlin October to January, Pineapple December to February, Midsweet January to March, and Valencia March to June. Nothing on that list carries a Florida navel past January.
Little of that fruit reaches a produce aisle anyway. In the 2025–26 season, USDA's citrus summary counted 12.95 million boxes of Florida oranges, and about 1.36 million went to the fresh market. The rest was processed. California produced 49.5 million boxes, 32.2 million of them sold fresh. On those numbers, a winter navel in an American store is far more likely to be Californian than Floridian.
The rarer winter fruit gets its own write-up on specialty citrus grown in California, and every variety behind our jars is listed in the citrus collection.
Photo by Rachid Oucharia on Unsplash.
