April harvest - Key limes and calamondins

April harvests

Calamondin + Key Lime

Calamondins and Key limes, what a way to start the day, especially during cold and rainy April. While some curl there face when they eat a cala whole, Me on the other hand, gobble these up like candy at christmas. Key limes are another favourite of mine, in fact, limes, dare I say, are my favourite. Something about there taste sends my brain on a joyride. The smell of a fresh picked persian lime is no less then a oceanic blast of citrus heaven, leaving you unsure of whether or not you want to eat it or smell it all day long. This love for limes has actually lead me to start a few from seed just to see what happens ( red finger lime + Indian sweet lime). I am still in wonder of the finger limes as I have yet to try these little beauties, actually, I have yet to try any of the varieties from Australia due to there tight restrictions on selling live plants internationally. I believe this has changed somewhat as Im starting to see things pop up online. The only way I was able to get the red finger limes was from ebay. It was a year or more now and I have forgotten the seller and the account I used to order,lol. But from what I wrote down, It was the wild red type from the rain forest. One of the only varieties to grow true from seed, with the red colour holding in the inner pulp, even if its not true from seed, the chance of something new is just as interesting and I don't mind waiting 4-7 years to find out, in this case I believe, good things come to those who wait.

If anyone out there has an Australian citrus there selling/trading IM INTERESTED !!

Even if its seeds. I would love to get my hands on an outback lime!!.

So to cap off the night, I figure it calls for a home grown salad with homemade Calamondin dressing and a key lime beer ( HOORAAA!! for MILL ST). 

Good night fellow growers.

Calamondin turkey salad

Kaffir Lime Flowering ✓

Kaffir lime - Citrus Trees - Canada

So I've just noticed our kaffir lime has started to flower/fruit. To think here in Canada it flowers in march/april is quite different (but I could be tricking myself). The strange thing was, I think this was by accident. A while back I brought a few Meyers from our hot sunroom
( 25c+ )  into our greenhouse  ( 13c ) during the winter and almost instantly they started to flower. This same situation/reaction happened with my Star ruby grapefruit. Now after moving our kaffir lime from the greenhouse into the sunroom there was an instant flowering. So I cant be positive of all varieties of citrus but it seems like they are like other species of plants where cold weather signals them to fruit, almost in a dash to save it genes. This is great for growers in canada with stubborn trees that are harder to flower ( To bad this wont work with bananas tho). Try setting your plant out side for a minute  ( not directly on the cold ground or in snow ) this might  stimulate that tricky tree. Please feel free to comment if this scenario works for you or what trees/plants you have found this trick works with.

The kaffir only gets half light but still fruits

We also noticed a friendly new predator spider the other day, while we've seen one like him that's all black with white stripes, this one was much larger with almost a blueish white on the stripes, not sure if its just more mature but I've never seen one this size before.

Natural pest prevention

Attack spider