Lemon tree very pretty ...

".. and the lemon flower is sweet,
But the fruit of the poor lemon is impossible to eat."

Wrong, oh nostalgic Peter, Paul & Mary folk song! Our mud room's west-facing window, plus lights   from Missoula's Garden City Garden Supply (http://www.gardencitygardensupply.com/all-products?cat=159), help produce the prettiest, sweetest, most delectable Meyer lemons ever.

Leaves are a little sketchy right now but blossoms got bee-pollinated last spring (I roll the tree's stand -- on casters -- out to a porch landing whenever the temp goes into the 50s) and have produced some 30 lemons.

Meyer lemons (Citrus x meyeri) are native to China and considered to be a cross between lemon and orange. A plant finder and USDA employee, Frank Meyer, collected a sample plant at the turn of the last century and introduced the Meyer lemon to America in the early 1900s (hence, his name on the plant). But it became popular much more recently, when chefs such as Alice Waters and style gurus such as Martha Stewart made a big deal of the lemons in recipes and magazines. The LA Times features many uses for Meyer lemons in a recent story (http://www.latimes.com/features/la-fo-meyerlemons16jan16,0,3234618,print.story).

Up close and personal, one of our tree's biggest Meyer lemons.

I bought my tree in St. Louis several years ago from Garden Heights Nursery (http://gardenheights.com/) and we hauled it to Montana. I also know that Bowood Farms carries them (http://www.bowoodfarms.com/) for you St. Louis-area customers. But by mail order, you may purchase a dwarf Meyer from Logee's Greenhouses in Connecticut (http://www.logees.com/Meyer-Lemon/productinfo/C2004-2/). Or, for a bigger plant, five or six feet tall, such as ours has grown to, a mail-order source is White Flower Farms also in Connecticut (http://www.whiteflowerfarm.com/4682-product.html?mobile=1). However, a quick look at the latter indicates that White Flower currently is sold out of the trees and asks customers to register an email for future supplies. I wonder, too, about shipping to Montana this time of year.

When you do get the lemons (individual ones are for sale in Missoula at the Good Food Store, fyi, (http://www.goodfoodstore.com/) then you cook. What else have we got to do when the temperature outside dips into minus numbers?? My husband is experimenting with several different lemon-bar recipes.  So far, we like The Joy of Baking's recipe for lemon-bar filling (http://www.joyofbaking.com/LemonBars.html). And for the crust, there are several experiments. We've most liked a shortbread recipe that he modified by adding a bit of extra salt, from Mel's Kitchen Perfect Lemon Bars (http://www.melskitchencafe.com/2013/07/perfect-lemon-bars.html).

A Meyer lemon, sans peel. You won't believe how fragrant is the zest!

Alex with one of his crusts in our Montana kitchen.

We are going for equal layers of buttery crust and sweet-tart lemon filling.

Because we have a pretty fluted pie pan, we're making lemon wedges as opposed to bars right now.

So, is a Meyer lemon plant for everyone? Citrus trees as houseplants are known to attract an insect called scale. Scale is small and sucks plant sap. We have some scale now. It leaves a sticky substance on leaves and stems. I wash leaves, and the tiny critters off, with warm soapy water throughout the winter. I hose down the tree when it can return outside in spring. One organic-farming Website suggests this for citrus: "Trees with appropriate water and nutrition status are likely to withstand scale infestations more readily than stressed trees. Over-fertilizing with nitrogen should be avoided as it is known to encourage higher levels of reproduction in some citrus scale." Also, for home gardeners, spraying the tree with horticultural oil in the fall -- before bringing the plant inside -- is another organic solution. (See http://www.ext.colostate.edu/pubs/insect/05569.html.) I neglect to do that most years out of pure laziness. Even this year, I had it firmly in mind to spray and then life, and the weather, intervened. I've learned to live with scale because it's almost always on these plants in winter, anyway. A fact of life. The tree struggles but leafs out, flowers and returns to full, scale-free health in spring and summer.

I am trying to convince at least one restaurateur in Hamilton to grow Meyer lemons for her desserts.

I've given the lemon wedges as holiday gifts. And there are more to come.

Citrufication of the valley, I'd say, if I were running for office!! A lemon in every pot.

Today, with a 43 degree high here, it almost seems likely that we could grow them outside. But mine is tucked cozily into its mud room space, alongside a tropical bougainvillea (purchased years ago in New Orleans).  We are hoping for much, much colder weather, to kill outdoor pests such as the pine beetles that are turning some of Montana's beautiful evergreens brown.

So, through a rear window, bougainvillea, lower left, and lemon tree live on in the mountainous West (see reflection of Downing mountain, near the top). Both plants give us a sunny welcome when we return home.

Copyright © 2013, Becky Homan