Tuesday, March 26, 2013

Lemon Tree and March Mains

 My kids and I are all feeling under the weather this week, sadly for the kids it is school holiday this week so the museum trip is being postponed for the time being. There are certain things as a parents it is not easy to explain regarding our own basic customs or culture because our children spent more living in Adelaide than here for the time being. The almost six years old Ilhan getting curious what is a Sultan and Malaysia democracy system for example. So my other half suggested probably the National Museum will be good for them. When my parents came back this month, I got to identified many plants and its origin from Mama. One of the plants that surprised me the most is her lemon plants. For all my teasing her (gulps with regrets when I was staying in Adelaide), she successfully grown so many lemons trees from the seeds that she collected from fresh lemons that we received from 'Fruit & Vegetables Swap' meetings. On top of that, the plants were bearing heavy fruits when I came back . For a fruit plant, the lemon plant my mother grown from seeds must be very young especially to start bearing fruit compared to a grafted one. I don't think I can catch up with her green thumb at growing plants. The most amazing thing I observed was the plants that she bought from our local nursery did not produce juicy lemon (mostly dried pulps), but the ones she sowed from seeds were so juicy and far better than the ones we ever bought in the market. We are so blessed with lemons since we came back, each week we will have some to harvest and sometime I got lazy to pick them.
 A few gardeners in Malaysia were a bit sceptical (just kidding, jangan marah ya) that we can grow lemons in Malaysia and asked for us to post lemon plant pictures. Well here is one of our superstar, picture taken last December. This plant height is just over 1 metre tall. There is a vine creeper plant over the lemon plant need to take it off from lemon. This is the plants that produces lemons for the heart charity event that we participated last year. Grafted plants does not have a long life at our garden especially during wet season they will be a lot of rain and our area is prone to flood. So growing fruit plants from seeds is more a good investment but rather a tricky one because it might not be the same clone as its original parents. However, if you are lucky, you get much better original new fruits. For example, the seeds sowed by mother I have noticed at least 2 different kind shape of lemons and both are good bearing trees bearing good new fruits different from the original parent seeds.
 Here is the lemon plant base, the roots has spread to more than a metre at its growing location. Chicken and ducks love to sit under the lemon tree sometime and we don't have to weed as they like to scratch the soil while leaving their poo around.
 Sometime the lemon fruit is stung by that insect in the picture especially during hot weather which made me think how did the ones in the store can be perfectly unblemished. I don't really mind much as it only reduce the lemon storage time a little bit outside of the refrigerator compared to the ones that did not received kisses from them. But the ones that stung by them are actually more juicier, very intelligent insect.
 This is how the plant look last month, not much leaves compared last year. This lemon plant has spent most of its energy producing fruits in expense of leaves. Last week, my other half has helped pruned all the branches into half for the plant to be able to rest for a while. This lemon plant were given goat manure after being pruned. At the moment, we still have more than 3 lemon plants fruiting so this one was given a chance to rest and refreshed itself. After cajoling mama for the tour at the back, I was surprised we have actually many lemon plants all over the garden, perhaps more than 20 plants in various sizes. One of the main reason, the naughty butterfly pea plants and winged bean plants hide those plants and make them their trellis. Of course the Head gardener was not happy to see her lemon plants being swallowed up by that naughty naughty plants. Since the lemon trees are more precious, when I fill fit again all those naughty plants will be cleared and off into the compost bean. The head gardener is still planning to plant more lemon along the wall. Probably the thorns will put off people from trespassing. 
 Another citrus that we were able to harvest last week was a mini pamelo. Also some basil leaves, okras, bananas, soursop, calamansi limes, butterfly pea blooms, surinam spinach and a soursop.
A small papaya before the birds got to them and some green mangoes.

19 comments:

Liz said...

And I thought it took far longer for lemons sown from seed to fruit. I must try sowing some of the seed from mum & dads tree and see what it produces.

Ummu Madihah said...

Salam Nadia,

X sangka pulak pokok yg ditanam dr benih lebih cepat berbuah berbanding yang ditutkan?! Org tua2 kata yg asalnya benih pokoknya perlu besar d cukup tua sebelum berbuah. Yang tut muda lagi sudah melayut buahnya.

Sunray Gardens said...

Very nice photos. Nice that you can grow so many fruits along with all your vegetables.
Cher Sunray Gardens

kitsapFG said...

That lemon tree looks very content and oh what nice fruit! I really envy you all the tropical fruits and vegetables you can grow in your region. Even your flowers are just so much more exotic looking. Simply beautiful.

Norma Chang said...

I am going to try growing a lemon tree from seeds, I will need to keep it as container plant and bring it indoors for the cool and winter months.

Daphne Gould said...

I would so love your profusion of lemons. Well maybe not 20 plants, but I sure wouldn't mind a few. But I'm just not willing to try to coddle it in my cold climate. I don't have a greenhouse and don't have good windows either.

KL said...

I thought Malaysia would be an easy place to grow lemons as it is tropical. Why some bloggers didn't think so? Mothers always know best, and thus your mother also knows best how to grow plants successfully :-).

Malar said...

That's very nice lemon fruit! I'm still waiting for mine....
Museum is really suitable palce to explain the history!

africanaussie said...

Oh that is very interesting - so many people say that citrus trees have to be grafted. I reckon that the seeds came from good old traditional stock.

Gardener on Sherlock Street said...

My goodness. I learned a lot about lemons. Wow. Your garden continues to produce so well. Hope everyone gets to feeling better soon and you get that museum trip in sometime. Enjoy your harvest!

Anonymous said...

wah ada lemon tree lagi... suka2 & enjoy yr harvest yer

JaSSNaNi said...

hai, assalamualaikum..
ai datang ziarah sini... to be honest, ai memang jeles tengok kebun u ni.. geram tau.. macam2 hasilnya..

Stephanie said...

The head gardener is a very adventurous person! Another possible reason why people don't grow lemon is that the fruit is not as frequently used in cooking or with food as compared with limau kasturi etc. Anyway, I also wonder how the growers grow such perfect fruits ;-) Enjoy your wonderful harvest. Happy gardening :-D

Dewberry / Amanita said...

I really like these blue flowers you keep decorating your food with! :) it all look great!

Malay-Kadazan girl said...

Liz~ I thought so too. Surprised me as well.

Ummu Madihah~ Mungkin ikut faktor lokasi tanah, baja dan cahaya juga kut Mak Aji.

Cher~ Happy that we have more space to grow food and experiment new things.

KitsapFG~ I think my mother pick the right spot to grow some of her lemon trees. There are various stages of lemon trees sowed from the same batch.

Norma~ I think it is possible to grow lemon in container.

Daphne~ Yes I can understand, lemon tree in your climate will require some attention during the cold season. Maybe in the future you have some space for a greenhouse.

KL~Maybe because most of the lemons here are imported product? I was astonished lately to discover some of imported lemon here from so far away Africa. Yes, mother always knows best :) .

Malar~ Hope your will bear fruits soon too.

Africanaussie~Yes must be from a good old traditional stock. Grafted trees don't really have a long life span here in our garden. Seeds gives better root system.

GoSS~ Finally everyone recovers now. Thank you.

Kesuma Angsana~ Syukur alhamdulillah banyak rezeki dari lemon.

JaSSNaNi~ Waalaikumsalam. Bolehlah you pun start gardening dari kecil-kecil.

Stephanie~ Yes probably we had so many varieties of citrus. But now that lemon getting popular, people get interested to grow them.

Dewberry~ The blue flowers can be add in salad as well.

ijan said...

would it be possible to buy some lemons from yr mum's trees [that were grown from seeds]? i would like to grow lemon trees from seed too :)

JK said...

Hi,

For planting lemon from seed, how long does it take to have first harvest?

Malay-Kadazan girl said...

Ijan~ Kadang-kadang if we have extras lemon during peak season we offered it at Kebun Bahagia Bersama blog.

JK~ All depends on soil, light and weather. If they grow well in 5 years time.

Anonymous said...

Hi, first time commenting here.

So, kalau katakan kita beli lemon dari kedai, leaps tu seeds dia boleh tanam mcm tu sahaja?

kawasan garden saya kecil ( dan juga penuh dgn herba sekarang) so kemungkinan perlu di tanam dlm pasu yg besar. rasa2nye boleh ke?

Terima kasih!

AI