story of a lemon

I harvested my first lemon recently. The plant is growing on my sunporch along with some other lovelies like my calamondin orange and miniature pomegranate. 

It's so satisfying to grow something that you're going to eat (ok, I love growing just about any plant... fruit or no, flowers or no...) and being able to do so in my house when there is snow outside is especially thrilling. What makes me even more proud about my first lemon is that I grew it from a flower. I brought the plant home last May when it was filled with buds.

Inside I fertilized the flowers with a paintbrush and then I brought the plant outside for the summer where the bees could do their work. And work they did.

By August there were lots of little lemons growing. Some fell off and eventually there were only four left. But having four lemons slowing turning from green to yellow on my windowsill all fall and winter has been pretty amazing.

If you want to try your hand at growing citrus, I'd recommend the Meyer lemon (shhhh, don't tell my beloved calamondin that I'd recommend the lemon over it). It blooms and blooms and blooms and the lemons... delicious.

You need a good deal of sun and well draining soil that's a bit on the acidic side. I fertilize occasionally with fish emulsion and if the leaves are looking a bit yellow, I add chelated iron to the water. A summer vacation outside is always a good idea, too.

On an unrelated note, I want to apologize to all my commenters. I had to turn on the word verification because I was getting so many spam comments. It makes me sad.

I hope you've had a lovely week!