Today I ventured into new turf…growing citrus! My kids and I planted the Meyer lemon tree that I got for Christmas. I must say that playing in the dirt is wonderful in January! Perhaps this is how I maintain my sanity in the dead of winter…that and obsessing over seed catalogs… Anyhow, they thought it was super cool that we will grow our own lemons. 🙂

I saw recently (don’t ask me where, but it stuck in my mind) that someone was harvesting 100 lemons over the course of a year from one of these trees. Anyone with experiences with these plants…please comment! I would love to know how they have done.

During the colder months, we will maintain it in the house (hopefully :-)) and once it warms up enough, we will put it out in the yard.

We got this “one year old tree” from Four Winds Growers. I did ask the post office to call me when it came so it wouldn’t sit out in the cold, and it was just perfect when we got it. Fast shipping, great service, beautiful tree. 🙂 If all goes well, I would like to add a lime tree and a blood orange tree to the collection at some point.

They send really good planting instructions along with the tree. One recommendation though…the planting directions call for planting it in a mix of Perlite or cedar chips, with unfertilized soil (1/3 Perlite:2/3 soil). The soil did prove a little challenging to find in January but I was able to find it at a larger Super Walmart. The Perlite was found easily enough at a local hardware store. They also recommend a Vitamin B1 rooting complex for the first few waterings, which I ordered from Star Nursery. I also decided to get a new 5 gallon pot – I didn’t want to contaminate the tree with any possible fungus or disease from a previously used pot. In spite of the fact that my plant has sat in it’s wrappings for the past two weeks, it still looks great and has new growth, as you can see from the picture.

On that note…I figured I would add links to a couple of my favorite recipes involving lemon:
Tom’s Medicine Chest Smoothie (from the Whole Life Nutrition Kitchen Cookbook – I use varying greens)

Our Nourishing Roots GAPS-friendly lemonade

I have never tried this one but I will be…it has me intrigued! Pickle Me Too’s Preserved Indian Hot Lemons…

This post was shared at Butter Believer’s Sunday School; Prairie Homestead’s Homestead Barn Hop; The Better Mom’s Monday’s Link Up; Real Food Forager’s Fat Tuesday; Cooking Traditional Foods Traditional Tuesdays; Kelly the Kitchen Kop’s Real Food Wednesdays; GNOWFGLINS Simple Lives Thursday; The Nourishing Gourmet’s Pennywise Platter; Food Renegade’s Fight Back Fridays;