The main purpose of the Lemontree diaries is to inform the readers of the status and well being of my lemon tree. For those who are interested, a little background on lemon trees can be found here.. Without further ado, here goes the diary August 4th, 2002  To make updates easier to spot, I reversed the order of the entries. Besides this, there's not much to add to the last update. Fruit riping slowly, little lemons growing slowly. The smell of the blooming tree is just wonderful, and this does not only delight myself but also attracts the local bees. It seems as if there was a busy bee around whenever I step outside during the day.July 29th, 2002 Whoa, times sure passes quickly. As usual, the Aachen summer was rather rainy, but the Lemontree does not seem to suffer too badly.  It is currently in full bloom, the little bulbs are getting bigger, and slowly, slowly the lemons seem to turn yellow finally. Harvest is not far - hopefully. Some new pictures will be up shortly.June 21st, 2002  Sorry for not keeping you all up to date. My life was pretty busy, whereas the tree seems to be pretty relaxed. While I was gone for a week, Carsten obviously took good care of it. It carries three clearly visible fruits. However I wonder when the two larger ones will finally be ripe, to me they seem pretty unchanged since the last picture taken (unfortunately the colors are not quite accurate in the photo, the fruit look much less yellow really). The city bees seem to be busy and there might be more lemons soon. Several buds  are visible and I am excited to see what will happen. Will they really turn into zesty lemons? By popular demand you can now be notified of lemontree updates by eMail. Just send a message to lemonmail@vonBelow.Com with "subscribe" in the subject.May 21st, 2002  At least it seems the tree survived the weekend, while I was in Berlin. Today the tree got a new
pot, and while I was at the florist I got myself some advice. Most importantly, I was advised to
move the tree outside, finally.
Let's hope some city-bees find it on my balcony...
May 14th, 2002 It's been somewhat cold and rainy today. Felt a bit sorry for the tree, and thus it stayed indoors. Let's rethink in a couple of days. Addendum: Watered the tree a little, and made a Lemon Caipiriña! May 13th, 2002 At least the tree looks okay... After some more research it seems that lemons prefer relatively cold temperatures, suggesting I take the tree outside. Friends confirm this advice. So I guess tomorrow it's time to take the tree outdoors. May 12th, 2002  
A lemon tree in my living room, who would have thought...
On arrival, the tree still had one ripe lemon, and three unripe lemons. Three
other lemons had fallen off during transport. One of them will probably make a
Caipiriña very soon.
After researching the care of lemon trees, the general consensus seems to be:
Try to avoid overwatering your citrus. A "rule of thumb" I found was to allow the first inch of soil to dry
between waterings. "Water slowly until the soil is moist but not soggy.". Also I was advised to
fertilize the tree once in a while. |
