Meyer lemons are prized as gourmet lemons. Amazingly enough, they are easy to grow as house plants. I have had the same one for over 15 years now and it has consistently produced lemons except for a few years when I wasn’t paying enough attention to it–this year it made 40 lemons despite a trunk diameter of no more than 1.5 inches! This picture has a tangerine tree in front of the lemon but you can see the lemons. The pots are on plastic trays with wheels that make it easy to move around.
From November to March it’s inside in front of a sunny window and we enjoy its fragrant blossoms in late winter. On warm early Spring days we move it outside for the day so the honeybees can pollinate the flowers. Tiny green lemons form and grow all summer long and can be harvested in late Fall once fully yellow. During the warm months of the year we have it outside in full sun on the deck. From a permaculture point of view this is an ideal house plant–it serves many desirable functions. We are so enamored with this tree that we eat the lemon rinds too by drying and grinding for seasoning/tea or candying them in just maple or coconut syrup (1 Tbsp. with chopped rind of 1 lemon simmered with an occasional stir in a shallow pain until rind is soft and has absorbed all the liquid-keep in refigerator). If you decide to try your green thumb with a Meyer lemon, in can help maintain it to foliar feed it once a week with an organic liquid fertilizer (such asSpray’n grow) or to use Espoma organic citrus fertilizer 4 times a year. Give it a try!
