NON-ALLITERATIVE TUESDAY: LEMON TREES
Non-Alliterative Tuesday: no obligations, no rhyme, reason or methodology other than that it's something relevant to food and goings-on in Kitchen Toro...
I love lemons. Almost every night at school when things have quieted down I make myself a cup full of fresh-squeezed lemon juice, dilute it with a little bit of water and ice and drink it down, tart and refreshing. One by-product of all these lemons are alot of seeds.
I used to grow my own summer plants on a fire-escape outside my kitchen window: tomatoes, green beans, cucumbers, basil, and oregano. The yield often wouldn't be very much but it was nice to be able to look out the window and check the progress of a few baby tomatoes and to grab some fresh herbs to cook with from time to time. But I've since moved and I don't have access to a fire escape any longer and these are the type of plants that need a lot of water and heavy exposure to the sun.
So over the past three years I've been growing lemon trees on my windowsills. It started with a small lemon tree I bought on the way back from Key West, Florida, which I sent back to New York in a cardboard box on the plane with me. The foot-tall tree made it back to New York in one piece but wasn't the same after that. It was fruit-bearing but died not long after being placed on my Brooklyn windowsill.
After I make a citrus dressing at home or slice lemons for water I save the seeds and throw them in pots of dirt on my windowsills and lightly cover them. There's not much to growing the plants. They sprout pretty quickly and soon enough the shiny green leaves are spreading out.
Watered a few times a week the plants thrive and are fairly forgiving in the face of ocassional negligence. I don't expect any fruit to form on the trees at least not for a few more years if ever but they're great houseplants as long as you trim them back before they start to get too high.
The plant to the right and the one directly below are the oldest of all the trees I've planted. If theyre going to bear fruit I expect it might happen in a few years. The plant to the right is my wild-card; I've tried to prune it back but it's already about three feet tall. The only real problems I've had thus far is with transplanting some seedlings. As careful as I've been they sometimes don't take to new pots once they've been replanted.
I've had more luck with the plant below which has branched out some. If they get too big I suppose I'll move them to larger pots on the floor. After that I suppose I'll have to move down to Florida to plant them! After the first two years they plants seem to form hardy thorns about a half an inch long. I'd love to someday be able to pluck a fruit off of one of these trees.
I'm not entirely sure what the plant to the right is. I've thrown kumquat seeds, cherry pits and apple seeds into this large pot and I'm not sure quite what it's going to yield. The plants are a dull green but leafy, hardy enough and nice to wake up to.
I love lemons. Almost every night at school when things have quieted down I make myself a cup full of fresh-squeezed lemon juice, dilute it with a little bit of water and ice and drink it down, tart and refreshing. One by-product of all these lemons are alot of seeds.I used to grow my own summer plants on a fire-escape outside my kitchen window: tomatoes, green beans, cucumbers, basil, and oregano. The yield often wouldn't be very much but it was nice to be able to look out the window and check the progress of a few baby tomatoes and to grab some fresh herbs to cook with from time to time. But I've since moved and I don't have access to a fire escape any longer and these are the type of plants that need a lot of water and heavy exposure to the sun.
So over the past three years I've been growing lemon trees on my windowsills. It started with a small lemon tree I bought on the way back from Key West, Florida, which I sent back to New York in a cardboard box on the plane with me. The foot-tall tree made it back to New York in one piece but wasn't the same after that. It was fruit-bearing but died not long after being placed on my Brooklyn windowsill.
After I make a citrus dressing at home or slice lemons for water I save the seeds and throw them in pots of dirt on my windowsills and lightly cover them. There's not much to growing the plants. They sprout pretty quickly and soon enough the shiny green leaves are spreading out.
Watered a few times a week the plants thrive and are fairly forgiving in the face of ocassional negligence. I don't expect any fruit to form on the trees at least not for a few more years if ever but they're great houseplants as long as you trim them back before they start to get too high.
The plant to the right and the one directly below are the oldest of all the trees I've planted. If theyre going to bear fruit I expect it might happen in a few years. The plant to the right is my wild-card; I've tried to prune it back but it's already about three feet tall. The only real problems I've had thus far is with transplanting some seedlings. As careful as I've been they sometimes don't take to new pots once they've been replanted.
I've had more luck with the plant below which has branched out some. If they get too big I suppose I'll move them to larger pots on the floor. After that I suppose I'll have to move down to Florida to plant them! After the first two years they plants seem to form hardy thorns about a half an inch long. I'd love to someday be able to pluck a fruit off of one of these trees.
I'm not entirely sure what the plant to the right is. I've thrown kumquat seeds, cherry pits and apple seeds into this large pot and I'm not sure quite what it's going to yield. The plants are a dull green but leafy, hardy enough and nice to wake up to.
posted by Turo at 2:23 PM
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