Lemon crush

Even if we’re not experiencing typical February temps hovering around freezing (it’s supposed to be 71 bleeding degrees tomorrow, for crying out loud), I’m keeping my potted garden inside.

My two surviving herbs—rosemary and parsley—are producing nicely for various meals, and I have hopes for the gardenia. That one gave me a few flowers last summer when it was out on the patio, and I fancy I see the start of more that will come out this year.

However, the one I’m really, really praying for is the dwarf Meyer lemon. I grew up with a lemon tree (and an avocado, and a plum and a persimmon, although that one I loathed) in our back yard, and it’s burnt my bacon ever since I moved out and had to pay for lemons at the supermarket. We used to harvest the lemons (which I recall were a year-round crop) and squeeze the juice into ice cube trays. Even when we didn’t have lemons, we had juice by the bagful.

Even in the Valley They Call Silicon, it was possible to scrump lemons off front-yard trees as you walked past, so coming back to the District They Call Columbia brought me back into citrus sticker shock. So I bought a dwarf lemon. I’d have preferred Eureka, but by the time a mail-order nursery had totally screwed up, I had to take what I could get from Merrifield Gardens.

So I nursed it through one cycle of blossoms last summer, but no fruit. Then a second in late autumn, apparently ditto. So imagine my excitement when, a few weeks ago, I noticed little green nobs that might be proto-lemons.

At this point, there are three, recognizable lemons, and I am reveling in anticipatory joy.

I’m not seeing full ice cube trays of lemon juice in my immediate future. But I am so looking forward to the idea of having the makings of homemade lemonade, lemon-roasted chicken, limoncello, lemon curd, Pavlovas…

And I’m going to check out dwarf limes and orange trees, too.