…you make Lemonade! Literally. Especially if the lemons are really Lemonade. Lemonade is a cross between a lemon and a mandarin. It is sweet, with a slightly sour tang, and the tree is easy to grow.
Kim and Ben picked all of the Lemonade citrus today, as the tree was laden with fruit and as ripe as they were going to get.
Kim had already made a start on squeezing the fruit before I got home, so as she was making dinner, I continued to squeeze the fruit. All manually of course.
This is the remnants of the fruit. If I had time, I could have done a few things with them. I could have put the skins in vinegar to make a very good household cleaner. Or I could have grated them first and made more Lemoncello. However, as I already have lots of both, I put them all in the compost bin with a bit of wood ash on top to neutralize the acid.
After being poured through a sieve, we managed to make about 1.5 litres of juice. Not bad for a bit of rainwater and a handful of home made compost to feed the tree.
It is simply delicious. Slightly sweet, but heavy on the sour, just like good lemonade should be. It will be watered down before drinking or added to warm water with a teaspoon of honey to keep colds away.
And I still have a tree full of true lemons to pick as well!
What else do you do with your lemons (grown or gifted)?
So far i have one lemon on my new tree. I think ill be waiting a while to make lemonade.
What time is suitable to visit Sat. Jess was also thinking of dropping by – you know how it is with girlfriends, they alway go in twos. I am picking up “the girls” at 9.
I will check with the boss.
Gavx
Wow. What a great crop. And the result sounds delicious! So envious – lemons are not easily grown here at all.
I bet you have great apples though in your colder climate Dawn. I reckon that that alone would make up for it.
Gav x
i put in a lemonade at xmas, theres lots of fruit on it already, my lemon has taken 3 years to produce and has 15 beautiful fruit almost ripe, ready to plant this weekend is a lime tree……..love citrus and my favourite thing would be lemon meringue pudding. lemon honey/curd pretty good too. must make a new batch of lemon-vinegar thanks for the reminder. oh and carrot, apple, ginger and lemon thru the juicer…devine
Hi Brendie. I too love citrus. We now have 8 citrus trees in large pots, and all are doing well even if a few are probably root bound by now.
I think Kim may be making my favourite lemon tart over the next few days. Yum.
Gav x
My little dwarf lemon tree is not producing as much as I would like, but I gratefully accept bags of lemons at this time of year from anyone who has spare 🙂 I squeeze and freeze, then I have lemon juice to use all through the year. I also put the peels in vinegar to make a citrus oil/vinegar cleaner, Linda from Greenhaven posted about it the other day here
Great tip about the cleaner Liz. Even though I have some, I might whip up another batch over the week.
We also gladly accept lemon donations. You can never have enough lemons!
Gav x
How wonderful to have your own lemon tree, and home grown lemonade.