Indoor Meyer Lemon Pests

Soon after I had brought the Meyer lemon in from outside I knew that I would battle a winter pest problem.  It started with spider mites, but their numbers were few.  I sprayed the tree down with distilled water everyday for a week and the spider mites went away.  After they left scales moved in.  The pictures you have seen so far have not even dealt with pests because my camera is so bad. (My nice digital camera broke, so my cell phone pictures will have to work).

While I was having success with the first two lemons growing the sneaky scales were invading in large numbers.  At first I would pick them off with tooth picks. That did not work.  Then tried spraying down with water everyday for a week.  That did not work.  Then whipped up some homemade organic pest spray.  Did that for a week but still did not work.  Finally I broke down and bought a horticulture spray from Amazon.com.

The leaves were shiny for at least a week after the spray.  The scales died.  Victory was finally mine.

Over Wintering a Meyer Lemon Cont.

The nursery where my baby originated from (Four Winds Nursery) has excellent information on over wintering a Meyer lemon (or any citrus).  Here is the link if you would like to read what the experts have to say.  I am trying to implement all the conditions that the nursery says would be perfect for the tree to thrive.  Here is now the flowers progressed:

Nov 19th

Nov 21st

Nov 30th

Dec 8th

Dec 13th

Dec 21st

Over Wintering a Meyer Lemon

Once the temperatures get below 40 degrees outside it is time to bring the plants inside.  To my amazement my Meyer Lemon began to flower during the fall.  The first buds appeared on October 28th and they bloomed on November 13th.  Here is a progression of the buds into flowers.

Oct 28th

Oct 31st

Nov 2nd

Nov 13th

The first batch of flowers smelled extremely fragrant.  I could not believe that something so exotic was growing in my home.  After viewing and smelling the flowers I got to work pollinating each one.  I used a cheap paint brush.

As you can see the brush was full of pollen.  Bees would have been jealous!  My next post will entail how the flowers faded and progressed into fruit.  Stay tuned!

Citrus Light Requirements

Soon after planting the Meyer lemon tree I realized that it might not receive enough light during the coming winter.  They require at least 6 hours of direct sunlight to thrive through the winter.  I feared that there would be days on end with no sunlight.  In September I decided to take the next step and buy a grow light.  I wanted one that would be most cost effective.  After looking around online for the right light I landed myself on htgsupply.com and ordered a High Output Florescent Light (grow and bloom bulbs).  The light came within a week and to my amazement the company sent me a light $50 MORE expensive because my model was out of stock.  Of course at no extra cost for me.  I highly recommend HTGSupply for grow lights. 

Pictures taken in early September 2010. The light is plugged into an automatic timer that turns the light on at 7am and off at 10pm. 

First Post! Welcome!

Thanks for joining me!  Last winter I was feeling the blues. Rochester winters are long, cold and dead.  The complete lack of green plant life drained my spirits, but things started to change when I started looking towards spring.  I became very intrigued about growing a container garden on my balcony as the year before I had only dabbled with the idea.

Many times that winter I would shovel out my car, clear off the snow and drive down Monroe Ave to the Barnes and Nobles in Pittsford. Luckily during the winter they still had a good gardening section.  There was a plethora of information on container gardening.  Some notable titles are "The Bounteful Container" by McGee & Stuckey, "Fresh Food from Small Spaces" by R.J. Ruppentha and not surprisingly "Container Gardening for Dummies" by Bill Marken.  At this point I was only thinking about vegetables in containers, as I never realized that fruit could be grown in pots - especially citrus.  Once I realized that I knew that I had to try.  I absolutely love Lemons and limes!

After researching which species make good container pets and reading how to plant and care for citrus I made the move to buy.  During the summer of 2010 I ordered a Meyer Lemon from Raintree Nursery (and they get theirs from Four Winds Growers).  It arrived no more than a week later in amazing condition.  I was in love.

That is basically how it all began.  This is a picture of the Meyer Lemon right after it was planted.  In the next post or couple posts I will give stage by stage updates of how things progressed till now.