I've been evangelising this to people around me and I feel like I should evangelise it here to you comrades too - dwarf citrus trees are really fucking cool. For those who aren't aware, these are regular citrus trees of whatever varieties (lemon and lime are the most common) that are grafted onto dwarf rootstock so that you get full sized fruit out of a tree that stays fairly small, so those of us without a garden can grow them in a pot on the balcony. They're suuuuper easy to grow, they're hard to kill, they give you delicious fruit, they're really good looking trees even when they're not fruiting or flowering, and extra cool looking when they are. I reckon having cool plants that you can watch grow over the months and years is great for mental health, and it's twice as good when you can also watch fruit grow, and then use that fruit in your cooking and/or fancy alcohol.
I grow a bunch of veggies too and they're great and all, but they're seasonal and more work and constantly in the process of dying from something or other, but my citrus trees have been hardy as hell. They need a bit of sun (mine don't grow at all in winter when my balcony doesn't get direct sun), and they might not stand up well if you have freezing winters (though I've heard of people keeping them inside in the winter). Otherwise just water them deeply every few days and fertilise them every now and then (a bit more in summer, a bit less in winter).
They're not that expensive - in Australia they're 30-50 dollars (which I guess is about 20-40 freedom moneys), plus the cost of a couple of bags of potting mix, a pot (you can go fancy but a cheap plastic one will do, especially for the first couple of years), and a small tub of fertiliser. I can personally recommend Tahitian lime and Eureka lemon (plenty of people swear by Meyer lemon as well), and I've got a new kumquat tree growing now as well.
Anyway that's all I had to say, feel free to have a struggle session about the name "dwarf citrus" in the comments below.
Wholesome post. I am convinced. Have you ever had a calamondin, aka calamansi lime? They taste like sunshine and have edible skins. I’m growing one this year, it’s my first citrus.
That's awesome! I'm pretty sure calamondin is the same as the Australian kumquat (small round kumquat with more of a bitter taste compared to the sweeter, more elongated ones), which is exactly the new one I started growing a couple of months ago as well.
My grandma used to make amazing kumquat marmalade so my plan is to try and continue in the family tradition (hopefully trying to avoid the family tradition of having the kumquats constantly massacred by cockatoos). So far so good, it's grown well after its repotting and even looks like it's starting to fruit, which seems crazy for such a young tree. Hope yours is growing well too, comrade!