Although available year round, just like you thought, winter is when citrus is harvested, freshest, and lowest price.

-Grainlady

There is a season and they first ripen in winter, but our lemons stay good on the tree for a long time. We just picked the last few lemons - but two were damaged and not useable.

Last week I had to pick a lime instead - the new ones are just ripe enough to use, so that should cover us until this winter's lemons start to ripen.

One of these days I'm going to get a Meyer lemon tree. Right now I don't have room for one in the house during winter, but some day I'm going to have a greenhouse. I can't wait till then.

Sally

Sally, as a native Californian I feel your pain. Here, lemons are $.89/ea and bear a striking resemblance to limes (green). I wait for them to get down to $.50/ea and then buy 5-6 lbs., quarter, and freeze. I just toss a couple quarters into whatever I'm cooking peel and all. Really brightens an otherwise dull meal.

/tricia

I have two Meyer lemon in tubs I am growing. Hopefully I will get some fruits soon, before I run out of frozen ones.

dcarch

Dcarch, I hope you get some lemons soon, too. If anyone could succeed in growing lemons outside of California, I bet you can.

Tricia, I'll have to do that the next time lemons are in season. I love to squeeze lemon juice on my salads, and into all other kinds of things, so it's killing me not to have decent lemons.

Maybe I could also freeze lemon juice? Has anyone done that?

Sally

This post was edited by sally2 on Sun, Sep 1, 13 at 8:55

Sally, yes, do freeze your lemon juice. I've found funky plastic ice cube trays at the grocery store. Each indentation holds 2.5 tsp of juice. I just pop out the juice cubes and store in a ziplock. I also freeze whole lemons. Just zest the peel before you juice the lemon. Easy to do when the lemon is slightly thawed.

My Myer lemons are about 2.5-3" in diameter right now. I've really maintained the recommended fertilization schedule and it looks like the crop will be good sized this year. Not as many as last year, but bigger. Yum!!

Good luck!

Thanks, Beachlily, and everyone else.

Sally

I buy bags of lemons at Costco. I find they stay fresher in my fridge than ones from my local grocery store. I imagine they are from similar suppliers, so perhaps the food storage and distribution network is better...

I bought a pack of Meyer lemons when they were in season a while back, and quite frankly, I wasn't impressed with the flavour. I like the sourness of real lemons, and to me, these Meyer lemons had a flat flavour. Maybe I should have used them for a pie; they ended up going to waste.

Have a lemon tree that I started from a seed... about THIRTY years ago. Here in NJ, obviously tree can't stay out into cold weather. It's in a large pot, trunk maybe 4" in diameter, kept trimmed back to less than 6' so I can haul it inside when weather turns COLD in the fall.

Has gotten blossoms on it 2 times... once baby lemon got to about pea size before dropping... that aroma was WONDERFUL. Would LOVE to have it produce fruit, even if not the best??

Klseiverd, citrus trees are almost always grafted. I don't think that growing one from seed will reliably produce good fruit.

There were some orange trees in our yard that never produced good fruit. When DH looked at them carefully, he determined that the tree was all from the root stock - probably after they were planted the graft had died and the root stock grew into a tree. After researching grafting and some unsuccessful tries, he succeeded in grafting new buds on the tree and they have grown pretty quickly into a productive tree.

Clever husband!

Sally

The lemons in stores this year are awful, normally they're around .25 each but I just saw 3 for a buck in a store today and they looked miserable, patchy green and yellow and as small as limes.

I have a Meyer lemon tree, it's on its 3rd year in the ground and has about a dozen lemons on it now, it had close to 20 but the squirrels decided they like the flavor of unripe lemons and have picked a few off the tree (probably not the brightest squirrels in the trees).

Love the fragrance in that area when it blooms, not much sweeter smelling than lemon tree blossoms.

I just hope they get better soon. I used to be satisfied with bottled lemon juice, but since I've started using actual lemons instead, it's hard to go back to the fake stuff.

Maybe your squirrels needed vitamin C, Ghostly!

Sally

LOL Sally, I've been on a big citrus kick lately and impatiently waiting for the lemons to ripen, finding one laying in the yard with a couple bites out of it really hurts. Esp. since the grocery store ones are having such a bad year.