Unripe windfall citrus

We have a number of citrus, a few lemons, orange trees and a tangelo tree. This is in New Zealand where such things do pretty well.
My problem is... as the autumn gales start up, many full size fruits fall from the trees before they are ripe. Especially the oranges and tangelos. The lemons are not a problem, they seem ripe enough.
The fallen fruits mould quickly and do not seem to further ripen away from the trees.
Does anyone know of a use for unripe-ish oranges and tangelos? It seems like about 80% of the crop falls this way, and this represents a huge and unsightly waste that makes me feel bad every time I walk past the trees.
They are too sour for smoothies and juices, or salads. They do not have the appeal of a ripe grapefruit.
Hmmm, I really wish I could think of something other than composting, and even then, the wormies do not like citrus, ripe or unripe.
Candied peel?
Hugshugs from autumn New Zealand where I was gathering seaweeds on the beach this morning, and drying them for winter soups, stocks and stews- for umani flavour and sea goodness. Be well, Janette

Hey Janette. Good question. We had a recent thread about acidifying soil, and citrus scrap came up. I'm not familiar with the volcanic soil of NZ though.

Nice post BTW.

I seem to remember people using tulle, netting or whatever stuff similar to the net bags onions come in, and sticking the entire ends of branches inside and tying it up. If done right, it can provide strain relief so the fruit don't fall off so easily. It might also be a good idea to thin out overly burdened branches. Before citrus greening disease ruined all the citrus in my area, my old house would have immense bunches of oranges that would greatly weigh down the branches, and in a wind storm it would bounce around wildly. They were extremely sour, which I personally prefer, but no one else would eat them. Most of them would go to waste anyway, so I personally never bothered trying the netting trick.

I've also heard that cedar and citrus oils are good at taking care of pheromone based pests like ants and termites. You might be able to extract the citrus oil for a non-food purpose like that. I'd imagine that would leave the solids in a more agreeable state for composting.

I wonder: is there a way to trick unripe citrus into ripening (at least to a usable degree). Fruits/veg that offgass ethylene gas, causing other fruits to ripen? It's supermarket alchemy, but then again it may have homegrown possibilities? Just speculating.

How about making a vinegar?

here we don't have wind losses but rather the fruit splits before it's fully ripe (rain at the end of the season), I picked kumquats last week and had a few split already. It is horrible to see it wasted, especially after watching it ripen for months.
Local conventional wisdom is that citrus won't ripen off the tree, not sure if it's true or not.
I make limonene cleaner from citrus peels (fill a large 3L jar with peels, cover with vinegar, let sit in a dark place. it will corrode metal lids on the glass jars), it won't use an orchard worth of windfall but at least you'll get something out of it.

If you can find some fruit that has a good taste profile (and like sweet things) you could conceivably make conserves or marmalade. It uses large amounts of sugar so the sourness gets overpowered, but I'm not sure if the actual flavor is as good as it could be.
You could also preserve them in salt to make something similar to preserved lemons (used in Moroccan cooking, for example). And I make preserved limes, a Chinese home remedy for sore throats, you could use whatever citrus you've got if you can fit them in a jar.

Wow Tereza Okava, thanks for those awesome ideas.

To add to the story, yesterday I amused myself building two compost heaps with windfall citrus as the star of the cast. All the other players were there, including kelp and seagrass, grass clippings, leaf mold from the local bush and lots of clay rich soils from recent bed excavations and worm bed volunteers, all called William. Should be an awesome team. Might win the local little league champs.

I checked on another forum, and the idea that citrus will chase wormies away from your compost heap has been debunked, so I am giving it a go. I have maybe 13 or so heaps, so we will see when spring comes (NZ time).

Meantime it kept me amused, which is basically my first priority in gardening.

This morning I foraged on the seashore and adjacent bush and came home with seaweeds, leaf litter and most of an almost entirely decomposed once-upon-a-time tree stump. I will introduce the microorganisms to the various compost heaps, increasing their microdiversity. I love Korean traditional farming... it was how I got into to this idea.

So some of my compost are now speaking in Korean, Kiwi, Maori, Pacific Polynesian and Worm (NZ). Have a beautiful day, Janette

I think your multilingual worm crew will be happy. Occasionally I'll find myself with 20 kg of citrus and we'll juice it all, i trench compost the leftovers with a good sprinkle of lime over it. Rots down well, just takes some time.
Wish i had your seaweed resources!!!