Overwintering lemons well

Dear readers of the #Beetschwestern column! We wish you all a happy new year! It's freezing cold outside. Our gardens and balconies are finally resting under a layer of frost after this intense year. We #Beetschwestern are starting 2024 with an "indoor" theme, namely the care of our citrus trees. We have a few specimens, some smaller, others already over a man's height.

Our trees are quite bright and moderately warm, so we water them once a week. If the winter quarters were cool and dark, we would have to water the plants less and not fertilize them. However, as the temperatures fluctuate, our lemons suffer from moderate leaf loss. We could prevent this by maintaining constant temperatures, but we can't quite manage that.

Fertilizer and water

We are currently experimenting with homemade fertilizer made from potato and onion peelings and the coffee leftovers from our French press coffee machine. We leave the peelings in a large glass of water for a night and then pour it diluted into the pots. The water from boiled eggs is also said to be good for watering because it contains a lot of calcium. If we think about it, we use it ... . That's why the watering can is in a waiting position in the kitchen, so that we think about it often.

Flowering lemons

Our large lemons are currently full of blossoms. Now we don't know for sure whether there are enough pollinator insects in the small slit (= a narrow, elongated space). So we take a paintbrush and swirl it from flower to flower so that the males pollinate the females. The female flowers can be recognized by the pistil in the middle (I hope I have remembered the term correctly). Some of the many flowers are pollinated, but some of them do not become fruit and fall off. Transporting them outdoors leads to an additional loss of small fruits every year, but that's the way it is.

Pest infestation

One of our lemon trees is infested with whiteflies. Probably because I haven't ventilated it enough and the air has become too dry. Now I'm going to add basil, make and water a garlic decoction and spray the plant with either curd soap or rapeseed oil mixed with water. Let's see if that helps.

We #Beetschwestern wish you lots of fun with your plants! Here's to a new one!