Question about lemon planted from seed

[emily84]

So, I took a gamble and planted 2 lemon seeds from a lemon I had, and they actually grew!

This was before xmas and they've been sat on my windowsill since. They are now about 3 inches tall and I'm just wondering where to take them from here.

They are each in their own pot (about 5") still sat on the kitchen windowsill.

I'm guessing that now we're warming back up again that they will start to grow again after being pretty dormant over winter. So, outdoors or in? Straight to big pot or work up? They will have to be in pots as I don't have room in my plot.

Any advice you can give would be much appreciated as it was a bit of a shock that they even grew, I'd like to get them right!

Thanks,

Emily

[starloc]

you will need to keep them indoors, in a small pot, only repot once they get a bit root bound, a 3 inch pot will do for a year, then maybe upto a 4 inch, only go up a tiny bit at a time and use a very free draining compost such as 50/50 citrus compost and perlite

It will never grow outside in the winter unless in a greenhouse or similar protection, you will be able once its bigger to put it outside in the summer, after about june upto october

be very carefull about watering it, only when it drys out a bit at the top, never a bit at a time to keep it damp, anways water a lot after it drys out a an inch or so down the pot

It will be about 7 to 10 years before you get any fruit, and never prune it......it needs a large node count before it flowers, cutting anything off will slow flowering down

[Hassan]

I might try this to. Did you just plant the pip streight from the lemon or do you have to prep it in anyway?

[starloc]

lemons grow quite quickly just planted in compost, but for rapid germination use a propagator close to 30C. The fastest way to germinate any citrus is to put the pips in a plastic bag inside a damp paper towel somewhere warm, like by a radiator or in a propagator

Lemon seeds grow true to type but can take some time to fruit , lime fruit the quickest ( about 5 years ) and grapefruit although growing easily make a very large plant and take about 30 years to grow fruit