I've seen quite a bit i
n the news about a shortage of limes in Mexico driving prices much higher, if you can find them at all. Because limes are the most frost-sensitive of the citrus trees, their range in the US is fairly limited.
We have two lime trees, a Mexican (Key) lime that is about ten years old, and a Bearss lime that we've only had for a few years. The Mexican lime usually produces hundreds of limes that we haven't been able to use because it was so time consuming to juice them. They're too small for our electric citrus juicer, and I gave up on trying to get a sufficient quantity of juice for any use via hand squeezing or using a reamer. However, this year I discovered the citrus squeezer (sort of like a round, oversized garlic press) and I may actually be able to get enough juice for a key lime pie this year.The Bearss lime produced about a dozen limes this year, which is a pretty good yield considering its youth.
They are frost sensitive, and in the years we've had several hard freezes, shown considerable frost damage. Because the Bearss lime is only about eight feet high, we are still able to protect it somewhat by draping frost cloth over it, but the Mexican lime is too big for that. One year when we had a particularly cold winter, it didn't produce any fruit at all the following spring and its branches were terribly frost-nipped. But it came back fine, and you wouldn't know it by looking at it now.
