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bossjim1

After reading the True to Seed thread..

bossjim1
11 years ago

I guess that the tree I have, that I thought was a Ponderosa Lemon, really isn't.

A man gave my cousin a sack of lemons from his Ponderosa lemon tree in the spring of 2009. In May she planted some seeds from those lemons, and gave me a seedling in Sept. that was a little over a foot tall in a 1 gal. pot. I moved it to a 3 gal. pot, fertilized and kept it watered, and it took off.

In Feb. 2010, when it was 9 months old, it was over 3 ft. tall, blooming and setting fruit. I kept the fruit picked off and moved it to a 24" pot in early summer. By fall it was over 15 ft. tall.

In the early spring of 2011, I quit pulling off all the fruit, and left 12 lemons on the tree. The top was so big that the wind started blowing it over, pot and all. I put a 40# bag of Mex. beach pebbles in the top of the pot to no avail, it kept getting blown over. So then I cut about 5 ft. off of the top and added another bag of pebbles to the pot. That seemed to help, but I was down to three lemons.

Near the end of Jan. 2012, the wind blew it over again and broke off the remaining lemons just as they were beginning to turn a little yellow.

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I cut another 5 ft. off the top, and placed a 65# anvil in the top of the pot. So far this has prevented the wind from blowing it over.

Today it is a little over 12 ft. tall, has 25 or 30 lemons of several different sizes, and continues to bloom and set fruit.

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So, I guess that my questions are these. Is it very unusual for a seedling to start producing fruit that young? Is there any chance that these lemons will be good? And is it worth the trouble to keep something that is not a named variety?

Thanks for your help,

Jim

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