Growing Meyer Lemons Indoors

Have you ever noticed the foliage in the background of some of my pictures?

Sometimes you see it inside, near the dining room table.  And sometimes–during the summer months–it sneaks into pictures I take outside on our deck.

That, my friends, is a lemon tree.  We have two of them.  They are the only houseplants I haven’t killed off.  In fact, they’ve survived my care–or lack of it–for more than six years, now.

During the colder months, they live inside as houseplants, one on each side of the dining room window.

Once the danger of frost has passed, we move them out onto our deck, where they thrive during the summer months.  Other than moving them in and out, the only other care we give them is semi-regular watering and the occasional splash of plant fertilizer.  Easy-peasy.

Why yes, those really are lemons growing on my lemon tree.  Meyer lemons, in fact, and they taste sooo much better than the ones from the store.  Have you ever had a fresh lemon?  They are wonderful.

And yes, those really are blossoms on my lemon tree.

I have to say that I enjoy the blossoms as much as the lemons.  Words can’t do their fresh, spicy fragrance justice.  I’m always so pleased when my lemon trees bloom indoors, because the scent is absolutely heavenly, and works better than any air freshener on the market.

Despite their size, our lemon trees are pretty prolific.  They each bloom about 3 times a year, and produce quite a few lemons.  We don’t have lemons available year round, thought, since both trees tend to have lemons on them at the same time.  Some crops are bigger than others.  These lemon trees are self-pollinating, so it doesn’t matter if bees can get to them or not.

Those lemons are quite a conversation starter.  Our guests are usually equally astonished and delighted that we have lemon trees.

We got the idea from my parents, who, over the course of many years, have had several varieties of citrus trees in their Rocky Mountain home.  We ordered the starts for our trees through a seed catalog called Wayside Gardens.  (If you do an online search, you can find many options for ordering your own citrus trees.)  They arrived in two very small boxes, just single sticks with a few feeble leaves and a blossom or two.  We stuck those sticks in pots, and within a month or two, there were actual lemons growing on them!  It still blows my mind–I thought we’d been ripped off when I first saw those sorry little sticks.

I took the pictures above a couple of years ago, just a few weeks before Thanksgiving.  We had so many lemons ripen in the days before Thanksgiving, that I was able to use real lemon juice in all the recipes that called for it as I made our feast.  The crowd favorite that year?  A lemon chess pie made from our very own Meyer Lemons!

{picture–and the pie recipe I used–via Phoo-d}

Sadly, when we move across the country to California next month, our lemon trees will not be able to accompany us.  If the California border patrol won’t let us bring in apples from out of state, I’m pretty sure they’ll confiscate an entire lemon tree.  So, the trees are going to be given as parting gifts to some good friends who love lemons.  They will be missed (trees and friends alike), but we are excited to find out if we’ll be able to plant lemon trees in our California yard.  Hopefully, I’m giving up these two lemon trees so that I can have new lemon trees and orange trees and avocado trees and grape vines and…lots of yummy stuff.

Do you have a favorite houseplant?

Linking up to The Nester’s Planty Party