Our First Lemon

We have several trees in our micro-orchard:  two apple, one key lime, one Meyer lemon, one olive, one nectarine, and one banana.  The apple trees each gave us an apple this past season, and we have gotten one crop of key limes, but the others have been slow to start producing.

I thought the Meyer lemon was never going to produce, given that it is about three years old and blossoms every year but never sets fruit.  However, when I brought the trees inside last fall, I was shocked to find a good sized green lemon that had escaped my notice.

I watched it grow and slowly yellow until last week, when we plucked it.  When we cut it open, the scent filled the entire kitchen.  It was incredibly juicy for its size, and we juiced it right away and scraped the pulp into a glass along with the juice.  With the addition of some carbonated water and a bit of sugar, we had half a glass of lemonade to share.  It was easily the best lemonade I've ever tasted.

So now, we have have a craving for homemade lemonade and not a lemon blossom in sight yet.  Organic lemons sell for $0.99 each at our local store, so I don't know whether our harvest saved us a buck or kicked off a really expensive lemonade habit.

Whatever.  It is still totally worth it.