It is Victoria Day in Canada, a fitting time to write about my royally-named citrus trees!

Last year I got Victoria, a beautiful meyer lemon tree. She was so beautiful! The squirrels made off with many of the lemons before they ripened, but we did get a bit of fruit from her once we moved her inside for the winter.

Sadly, she didn’t survive the winter. I suspect that she simply didn’t have enough sunlight during the dreary days we have here in Ontario from Nov.-March. In hindsight, I wish I’d set up some sort of grow lamp for her, but she did seem to be doing ok in the first few months after we brought her in from the back deck so I thought she would survive.

I wanted to do something special with the last (and best) lemon that Victoria produced. The zest was used to make lemon poppyseed muffins, and the juice was added to soda water for a refreshing drink. (yum on both counts!). I was struck by how much more vibrant this lemon’s zest was when compared with a regular supermarket lemon. (the zest from Victoria’s lemon is on the bottom)

But I wanted something more than muffins and a fizzy drink. I did some reading up on how to grow a new lemon tree from the seeds. In a nutshell, it doesn’t seem like a very easy thing to do, but I was determined to at least try. I learned that I might have better luck with these seeds sprouting if I peeled away the protective layers (very carefully, using a paring knife). I then took the peeled seeds, placed them on a damp paper towel, and then placed the whole thing in a zip-lock baggie.

By this time we had already begun sprouting tomato seeds under grow lights in the basement, so I put the baggie full of lemon seeds under the lights with the other seeds. I basically left them alone for a few weeks (I did periodically check the moisture level, but the original damp paper towel didn’t ever need to be re-wetted), and until the seeds were sprouting. Time to plant!

I don’t know how successful this experiment will be, but I’ve got my fingers crossed!

In the meantime, I decided we needed another royal citrus friend, so I picked up Albert, the lime tree. Albert is currently sunning himself on the back deck and already has some glorious wee little limes starting to appear.