Lemon Tree Update

It's been a month since I started trying a new watering, sun & fertilizing regiment to try to get my lemon tree to boom.  After doing some research ...

• Brought the lemon tree inside and placed it in a room with Southern exposure - giving it optimal light for the majority of the day.
• Started watering just once a week, however when I water, I am giving the plant 1.5 to 2 liters at a time, which provides a deep soaking so that the roots are getting enough water.
• I started a fertilizing regiment where it received Citrus-tone every 30 days.  Normally it is recommended to fertilize 3 times a year but several people mentioned blooming success when using a more aggressive fertilizing schedule.

After kicking all this off at the end of September, I was pretty wary about how the plant would fair.  In mid-October, I left on a business trip with instructions to my husband to water our lemon tree just once a week, but make sure it give it a good watering.  When I returned home 10 days later, I was shocked to see that our lemon tree was budding!


While this is very exciting, it's a long road from buds to blooms to fruit.  From start to ripened fruit can take 3-4 months.  However Meyer Lemon trees can begin to produce 10+ lemons per cycle as early as their third year of fruit bearing.  Our tree is in its second year.

So the trick is to keep things rolling, the most important things to remember at this point are good light and not to over water.  While it's important that the tree get a deep watering, it's also important to not over water (especially with a potted indoor plant during the winter).  Too much water could lead to roots being surrounded by too much water, causing rotting.  Sun light is also critical, in order to produce fruit the plant ideally needs 8 hours of solid sun a day.  Right now the plant has been receiving that but I am thinking of purchasing a growing light to ensure it is definitely getting enough for the next few months until it can go back outside for spring and summer.

To see the full album of our lemon tree photos visit my Flickr page.

Drying Herbs

It was a good year for our herbs this year and now that the season is winding down it's time to pot the winter crop and dry out herbs for use throughout the year.  This post focuses on the drying aspect.  There are a few ways to dry herbs, I thought it would be best to try a few methods to find out what would really work well and what's not worth trying again.

For my first experiment I dried some sage.  The methods I used where hanging and a drying rack.  I started drying my sage back on the 3rd of September, about 15 days later it was ready to be stored.  Consequently there was no difference in drying time between the hanging sage and the drying rack sage.  Building the drying rack was simple I used made a simple frame and legs out of wooden garden stakes and a piece of screen from an old window.

The sage is properly dried when the leaves have shriveled a little and don't feel moist anymore.  The leaves will also go from their bright green to a duller green.

To store the sage for future use, first remove the leaves from the stems.

Then chop the leaves till they are about a 1/4 inch.

Once all the sage is chopped up store in an air tight container or bag until you're ready to use.  It's a good time to label your container.

While both methods went well I was also advised that you can place your herbs on a rack in front of a dehumidifier to pull the moisture out of the herbs quicker.  I have experimented with this method with basil but so far have no found that it speeds up the process at all.

What is left to try is a solar dryer.  My neighbors have one of these and use it to dry veggies such as peppers and tomatoes, but it also works for herbs.  Solar dryers use the heat from the sun to dry out food quickly.  Solar dryers can be build out of wood or old cabinets, more on this as it's a project for this winter.

My Lemon is Thorny

A year ago, we bought a Dwarf Meyer Lemon Tree, in the first few months we got several lemons but it has not produced any fruit since last fall.  So a year later we were back at the nursery where we got the tree considering a lime tree and I asked one of the gardener's, why my lemon tree was growing thorns.  He looked at me completely confused and said no one has ever asked me that before, and then proceeded to change the subject.  Needless to say we did not buy the lime tree from him.

So why was our lemon tree growing thorns?  And why aren't we getting any blooms or fruit?

 

After doing some research it appears that thorns can be common to lemon trees.  These as I am sure you can guess are the plants defense against attacks (in our house this would be Guinness, who can't keep his paws to himself).  Nurseries have been successful with several species in removing the thorn characteristic from lemon trees.  So now that the mystery of the thorns is solved.  Why isn't my tree blooming?

After more research, I've found that perhaps my watering procedure was not optimal and I also might be able to change sunlight and fertilization going into the fall and winter to bring on blooming.  So, the new mission, get that tree to bloom again, because fresh lemons are way better than store bought.