I moved to this house less than a year ago. In the back yard, there is a lemon tree (type unknown, 8 feet tall, 12 feet wide). I don't think it was being well taken care of, (and I haven't done a good job myself). It had some yellow lemons during the fall/winter of 2007 - less than 10 in count. Right now, it has about dozen or so green lemons, a bit smaller than the 10 lemons I had picked off during the winter. Should I remove these green lemons or is this normal and will these turn into yellow lemons in the coming Winter? And are these (few) going to be the ones I'll be getting from this tree this year?
There is no need to pick the lemons. Yes, the green lemons will turn yellow. A lemon tree sets its main crop in the spring, which will mature in the fall (October to December), but will also flower and set smaller crops throughout much of the year. A lemon tree should be fertilized four times a year, and watered on a regular. There are many threads on this site, on how to fertilize a citrus tree. You can find them using the search function. - Millet
Wow, the tree is really giving fruit. About two months ago, there were thousands of flowers, followed by small fruits. Many of them fell off but, now slowly there are few flowers and they are followed by a quater sized lemons, that grow into regular sized lemons. As I read from another thread, I'm picking off small fruits that are within 6 inches of larger fruits. Even with the picking, I think it will have 100 or more lemons. I think suggestions from this forum - deep watering weekly instead of daily meager watering and fertilizing consistently with some fertilizer I had - helped enormously. Thank you.
You can continue to remove the fruit yourself if you want, but the tree will only keep what it can support. If you want really big lemons all you have to do is wait a few months after they turn yellow-- I had lemons that were over 4 inches in diameter-- I just picked the last one last week.
Wow....i wish i could grow citrus outside, i'm envious! I think i've done well to start an indoor grove in a cold climate though :P
