2011 lemon harvest
Our urine
fertilizer really
paid off, with 31 ripe or nearly ripe fruits on our dwarf
Meyer lemon tree.
The fruits were all a bit smaller than in previous years (which means
this year's lemons were roughly the size of storebought fruit.)
If we have the same bonanza of blooms this winter, I'll thin the baby
fruits so that the tree isn't overwhelmed.
I picked the first six
lemons of the year and grated off the zest to use in baking. Our
homegrown lemon zest will go fast because Meyer lemons are a hybrid of
an orange and a lemon, so their skin is only about half strength.
I double the zest portion of any recipe when using Meyer lemon zest.
The juice is similar to
that of a storebought lemon, though a bit sweeter. One cup of
lemon juice is just enough to bake a double strength lemon meringue
pie. Too bad the dessert has to cool overnight before I can cut
and taste it.
We've already got more
flower buds on the lemon tree even as the other 80% of the fruits grow
out of their last tinge of green. Meanwhile, another dwarf citrus
has bloomed and started to set tiny fruits. In a very
un-Anna-like move, I let the labels wash off the pot, so I don't know
whether we'll be trying out homegrown navel oranges or key limes this
time next year. I guess it will be a surprise!
Or explore more posts by date or by subject.
About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.
Want to be notified when new comments are posted on this page? Click on the RSS button after you add a comment to subscribe to the comment feed, or simply check the box beside "email replies to me" while writing your comment.
My myer has 10 ripening and another 23 small and green lemons from three differrent blooms. It did drop some leaves when I brought it inside and then went out of town for a week, so I hope it will bloom again this winter..
Myer lemons are sweet enough that I enjoy eating them (and the peel) by themselves.
So, your mention of pie reminds me that I was going to ask you if you would have any interest in playing games tomorrow...
Good point about lime ID --- I'll have to go taste the leaf.
I'm going to hope that two of your lemons fall off the tree so you don't beat me in lemon numbers this year!
I'd love to see you tomorrow (or even today.) The pie might still be here....
I'm going to have to see if I can track down a place for a small citrus tree. I'll have to get my wife on board since inside the house is her domain.
I love to hear about people using urine. I use it in the winter to help compost down the fall leaves. All that nitrogen helps jump start the composting process. When people ask, I call it homemade compost booster.
I keep meaning to do a lunchtime series on our dwarf lemons --- people are always very interested in them.
Lisa --- Our cats don't seem to be interested in houseplants, probably because they've got the whole garden to scratch up. Huckleberry slept in the pot a time or two, but that was about it.
Fritz --- I slacked a lot on collecting urine over the summer, but as soon as the world turns brown like this, I seem to get interested again. It is extremely helpful on my "compost piles" --- really just stacks of high carbon summer weeds that need a bunch of nitrogen to rot.