When I lived in Northern California, I had a Meyer lemon tree in my front yard. It was only about 5 feet tall and 5 feet wide, but it was a happy lemon tree. One of the last years I lived there, it produced over 200 lemons! I was making everything I could find that called for lemons...and giving them away.
When I moved "up North" to Palouse, I brought little potted lemon tree with me. It did really well outside in the summer but when I brought it in for the winter, scale moved in with it. Scale is a nasty little insect that wreaks havoc on a plant. Unfortunately, I didn't realize what was going on until it was really too late. Scale-1, Dona-0.
So, I bought another lemon tree for the pot and started again. This one did fairly well. I knew to watch for the scale and found some good organic pesticide "oil" to combat the little buggers. It worked for about 2 years. Then, in my zealousness to keep the tree happy, I watered and watered and watered too much. And then fungus gnats moved in. I was able to get rid of the gnats but I killed the tree by giving it too much to drink. Sigh...Overwatering-1, Dona-0.
Even though the trees didn't make it, we did get some lemons from them along the way, thank goodness. So, we got to enjoy a few lemony treats...enough to know we wanted more.
Not being one to give up easily, I bought another Meyer lemon tree. So far, so good. It produced a few lemons, three of which actually got full sized and are ripening now. It hasn't gotten scale, or gnats, or overwatered.
Tonight I made Lemon Budino (Italian for pudding) from the first ripe one. Oh, my, it is heavenly...more like a lemon souffle with a gooey bottom. One of the lemons will become Lemon Cream, which is basically a very creamy lemon ice cream. I don't know yet what the third will be. I have to be choosy when I have only 3 instead of 200. What they say is true....you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone. Boy, do I miss that lemon tree.
