Show off your homegrown Citrus fruits

Among the over 110 cultivars of Citrus we grow, primarily in the ground, in The Woodlands, TX (about 30 miles north of Houston, supposedly USDA Zone 9b) is a roughly 10-year-old Persian Lime in a large container.

Although still subject to freeze damage in the upper 20s F or lower, Persian lime trees are slightly more winter hardy than Key/Mexican lime, and they produce larger fruit in much greater quantities. Unlike seedy Key/Mexican limes, Persian limes are a naturally occurring triploid, so in theory they cannot produce any viable seeds. In practice, I typically find 1-2 seeds for every 50 or so homegrown Persian limes I juice. (As the great Yogi Berra once said, “In theory there is no difference between practice and theory, but in practice there is.”). 🤣

Here is the only viable seed I found in a batch of 50 home-grown Persian limes:

I have grown out several seeds from home-grown Persian Limes in the past, but none are fruiting size yet.

Two days ago I harvested 50 limes from our 6’ tall tree (out of about 80 total on it this year):

I washed them and started a batch of “Lime-cello” from their zest, made 2 lime pies for Thanksgiving, and froze 32 oz of juice as cubes for future use. FYI, although I typically use home-grown Finger lime juice vesicles, these 2 pies are each topped with a home-grown Lemondrop (lemonquat) slice “twist”.

Like to use limes for cooking or drinks? Do consider growing a Persian Lime tree, but keep it in a pot to move indoors temporarily if a freeze threatens!

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