This week I am documenting a forgotten part of most of my harvests: eureka lemons. The lemon tree has become such a reliable producer that it just fades in the background for me. Week after week I am harvesting without a mention large and juicy lemons to use for cooking and cleaning, it is not hot enough for lemonade yet. Well, today’s post puts an end to this neglect, here they are, documented, a plate full of lemons.
Behind the lemons stand the last harvest of Seville oranges. They look bumpier and wartier than most sweet orange varieties. Their pulp tastes close to a grapefruit, but without any sweetness, and their skin is bitter. They are very seedy. This is the first year that the Seville orange tree has produced fruit. It started back in February, and I’ve been making marmalade since. I love marmalade. I am also juicing them and freezing the juice in little cubes, mostly to add to savory dishes.
The dinner harvest continues like the previous weeks: greens–chard, kale and bock-choy, lettuce, spring onions, fava beans. Not much to add to what has been reported every Monday for a while now. For instance, this was my harvest basket for Friday’s dinner: a few leeks and sugar snap peas for a quick pasta sauce, and carrots for a grated carrot salad with a lemon vinaigrette.
For more delicious pictures and stories of harvests and to add your own, head on over to Daphne’s Dandelions, host of Harvest Monday, and take a look at what other gardeners have been up to this week.
May 17, 2010 at 6:22 am
Lemons are definitely a useful fruit to have around. I always try and have a few in the frig because they find their way into a lot of things. It would be great to have a tree in the yard! That’s a nice looking harvest you have.
May 17, 2010 at 12:26 pm
Maybe you can try growing a potted lemon tree in your greenhouse. A tree in the ground produces a lot more lemons that are necessary, maybe one in a pot would be enough.
May 17, 2010 at 8:18 am
I do the same thing with my Meyer lemons, the tree always has fruit on it and I pick a few every week for various things but never keep track of how much. You have a nice variety of vegetables coming out of the garden. The thyme in full bloom is lovely.
May 17, 2010 at 12:29 pm
Yes, same thing with the Meyer lemons.
You and I are lucky that we can grow a great variety of vegetables year round, a very nice thing about being near the coast but not at the coast in California.
May 17, 2010 at 8:59 am
It must be nice to have fresh lemons and oranges!! We can only grow them inside here. Your harvest looks great!
May 17, 2010 at 12:30 pm
I hope you do try to grow them inside. At least lemons and maybe kumquats or calamondins.
May 17, 2010 at 10:15 am
Lemons and oranges form own garden must taste so much better than ones I am used to…
There are a lot of oranges; considering it’s the first time that tree is producing fruit. Excellent harvest!
May 17, 2010 at 12:32 pm
A lot of oranges fro a young tree. It seems this sour oranges are more vigorous that the sweet ones. In your climate you must get fabulous stone fruits, don’t you?
May 18, 2010 at 1:26 am
We have here a lot of stone fruits, that’s true. Some of them grow better in a part of Croatia with Mediterranean climate. I live more towards north. We have some cherries, sour cherries and plums. And an apricot that doesn’t produce any fruit.
May 19, 2010 at 12:37 am
Oh, sour cherries! we can’t grow them here…
May 18, 2010 at 4:40 am
Well it may seem like the same old, same old, but the harvests look lovely. I would so love having a lemon tree that produces every week. I just can’t take the climate that it would grow in. So here I live in the north and just drool over other people’s lemons.
May 19, 2010 at 12:40 am
Maybe indoors? Lemons can be a good conservatory trees…
May 18, 2010 at 10:57 am
What a magnificent photographer you are. Makes you want to reach for a fresh lemon. Where I live we don’t have easy access to fresh lemons, so what I do is just go online (http://www.buy-lemons-online.com/ ) and order from growers that pick them right off the trees and ship them direct — a tip I learned from my cousin in North Dakota. This way I get fresh lemons picked from the tree without all the time sitting in cartons, trucks and warehouses. I think you should sell your lemons through that website.
I love this quote…
The lemon is the quintessential fruit that makes food sparkle. It has become synonymous with the word refreshing. — Betty Wrenn Day
Can’t wait for more posts like this,
T3
May 19, 2010 at 12:49 am
Thanks, I’m glad you enjoy the photos. Buying directly from the growers may be a good idea for those of you in northern locales. I didn’t even know sites like the one you linked to existed.
May 18, 2010 at 11:33 am
I’m with Daphne, I would so love to have a lemon tree that gives me a lemon or two very week. Unfortunately, all I have is a scale infested potted Meyer lemon. Ugh.
Gorgeous photos — so glad I stopped by today to see them!
May 19, 2010 at 12:52 am
Scale infests lemons grown in the ground too! It is the main pest to bother my citrus, and it is easier to deal with in a small potted plant than in an outdoor tree. If I could just keep those ants from the trees I’d have no scale.
Glad you like the photos
May 18, 2010 at 8:12 pm
I’m so envious of your seville oranges!!!! I bought a one year old tree a couple of months ago and was very excited when 3 small fruits formed. Than I had a little accident with my garden hose and the branch that held all three fruits broke off. RATS! I guess I won’t be making marmalade for quite some time.
May 19, 2010 at 12:54 am
Oh no, I am so sorry about your accident. Actually, the tree might have been happy since bearing fruit might be to hard a job for such a young tree and will reward you with an abundant fruiting next winter.
May 18, 2010 at 8:13 pm
Lovely harvest and citrus envy.
I have to grow citrus in containers, we shuttle them back and forth in spring and fall every year, they overwinter in a sunroom in our old house.
May 19, 2010 at 12:55 am
Citrus in containers are better than no citrus at all!