We Have Teeny, Tiny Lemons!

 We have teeny, tiny lemons on our tree! All that fertilizing, potting & repotting, moving in and out doors and general hovering around the tree has finally paid off with teeny, tiny green lemons! 

I can almost taste the (teeny, tiny) lemon tart I’m going to make with these!

We Have Figs! Yes!

We have figs! 

Yes, figs! It looks like the lemons aren't the only indoor fruits with spring on their little fruit brains! This is the third year for our fig tree and finally we have fruit! 

That's three years of dragging a heavy clay pot outdoors in the spring, move it around all summer to find maximum sunlight then drag it back in late fall after we have had a few freezes to harden it off. 

That's three years of fertilizing with composted chicken poop, worm castings and dragging heavy pails of water from our rain barrels when we finally remembered to water it (oops...it's a wonder we haven't killed it off yet...). 

And three years of gut-wrenching (for us, not the tree) branch flexibility tests we make all winter so we know we haven't killed it off over the long, cold dark months. 

Okay, I'll admit that last part is really to reassure us it is still alive. Alive enough to eventually produce figs like this...

...which, some day, we hope we will have enough figs for one of these...

...if we don't kill it off with too much haphazard TLC...

Lemon Tree in Bloom

My lemon tree is blooming! I’m so thrilled that a) its not just blooming but full of blooms (!) and b) that I didn’t kill it over the long, cold, gloomy, sunless winter! Yeah, me! I can almost taste those deliciously sweet Meyer lemons…yum! I have plans for them…lemon curd, lemon tarts, preserved lemons, Limoncello, lemon & herb butter, lemon cake, lemon sorbet, lemon bars, candies lemon peel, lemon drops, lemon poppy seed muffins…. I think you get the (lemon) message. I can’t wait till they ripen!

To fill my need for gardening year round in a not-so-year-round gardening climate, I bought a lemon tree. In the warmer months I take it outside, water it occasionally and mostly let it be. When the weather turns cool in the fall I bring it indoors where it looses most of its leaves by spring. If I’m lucky it will produce flowers on the tips of the almost leafless branches. If I didn’t kill it over the long, cold, gloomy, sunless winter, that is.

I’ve since branched out with a banana tree (barely alive), a fig tree which just broke dormancy (another leaf-less tree I haven’t managed to kill…yet) and an olive tree which is mostly leaf-less so the jury is still out on whether I managed to kill it or not… I hope I haven’t killed it as I would love to cure my own olives but since it hasn’t produced any yet (fingers crossed!) that little dream will have to wait.

Until then…my lemon tree is blooming!