We noticed today that a large, heavily fruit laden branch of our lemon tree had broken. It could have been damaged by some of the monsoon winds, or it might have broken under the weight of all the fruit. The branch was undoubtedly weakened by neglectful (read: nonexistent) pruning practices. Several branches were growing far too close to each other, and had actually grown together where they joined the trunk. Wind or no wind, that's a bad thing because the cambium on both branches is compromised. We should have removed the smaller branch long before it got to this point. Now we need to take both of then out. The photo below, taken from another angle, shows the crowded branches clearly.
The lemons are mostly full sized, but still green. I've read mixed reports as to whether they will ripen off the tree, but we're going to wait and see what happens. We cut into one and there is plenty of juice, so they may be perfectly fine for the normal uses we'd make of them. If they were oranges, it might be a different story, but I don't expect lemons to be sweet when fully ripe. As you can see in the picture below, there are a lot of them!
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