Time to squeeze the key limes

Key lime tree

I'm not sure how old our Key lime tree is, but it is very prolific. Back when we planted it, I didn't consider that there was a size difference between Key limes and the fruit one usually sees labeled "lime" in grocery stores. The taste is similar, but Key limes are much smaller; they're ping-pong ball size or slightly larger. Also known as Mexican limes they're often served as a garnish for Mexican beers. When fully ripe, they are yellow rather than green.

Average-sized key lime

Yesterday we picked quite a few, and today I decided to juice them for limeade. It's a time consuming process because it takes about 100 of them to equal a pint of juice.

A sink full of limes

First, I threw them all in the sink to wash them. There are a few of the larger Bearrs limes in this batch, too.

Juicing limes

Then I cut them in half and started juicing. I've found that this kind of hand juicer works better on smaller fruits than the electric juicer I use for lemons, Bearrs limes, and oranges.

The juice of about 200 limes

It took about an hour to juice them all, and I got about 4 cups of juice...

Future compost

...and a big bowlful of rinds, which I'll pulverize in our Vitamix and recycle into the garden as compost.

Fresh limeade!

To make limeade, I used about 1 1/2 cups of sugar, 2 cups of juice, and 6 cups of water. It's really a "to taste" kind of thing, but this yielded what to me was a tasty glass of limeade. Cheers!

Bearrs limes by the dozen, key limes by the score

Key limes

There must be hundreds of Key (Mexican) limes ripening on this tree. They are a pain in the neck to juice because they are so small. The best device I found for this purpose looks similar to a garlic press, but it's still time consuming to collect enough juice for any useful purpose. I have yet to make a key lime pie.

Bearrs limes

Our Bearrs lime tree is younger and there are probably a couple dozen limes on it this year. These are the larger, lemon-sized limes that can be juiced in an electric juicer, and they will most likely become limeade.

No shortage of limes here

I've seen quite a bit in 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.

Peach Blossoms #2

Blossoms have appeared on this young peach tree, a Mid Pride variety planted as a bare-root transplant a year ago. We purchased this and a white-fleshed variety from the Phoenix Permaculture Guild. The other new tree survived the summer, but died in late fall. Our oldest peach tree fruits very early, usually in late April, and we hoped to extend the fresh-peach season by choosing some later-fruiting varieties.

The larger tree in the back is a Key Lime. I don't know that I would choose that variety again. The fruit is very small and therefore time-consuming to juice, and it is dangerously thorny. In an attempt to avoid being scalped, we try to keep the branches pruned higher than our heads. I didn't plant nasturtiums here this year; these reseeded and spread from last year's border planting.

Poolside in the garden

I haven't posted a picture of this corner of our yard in a while, so here is one. There are rosebushes along the block wall, and this year we added two new bare-root peach trees that we got from a Valley Permaculture Guild plant sale. We also added trellises for vines on the wall, made from recycled metal pieces of an old gazebo that had begun to deteriorate.

We planted two banana trees in the planter areas behind the pool last year. One died, but the other has come back nicely and appears to be multiplying...there's a baby banana tree next to this one which isn't visible in this photo.

I don't think we will get any key limes this year because of the freeze. The same thing happened a few years ago when we had another hard freeze. Limes are more susceptible to frost damage than other citrus fruits, but surprisingly enough we have a few limes on the Bears lime tree, which is a lot younger than the key lime. Luckily for my grapefruit-loving mother, grapefruit is the least susceptible and our Ruby Red tree wasn't affected at all.

The rosebushes are still blooming, but the nasturtiums and larkspur are gone, to be replaced with marigolds and zinnias. The large marigold directly behind the waterfall is a holdover from last fall which survived the frost. I've collected seeds from it and scattered them along the perimeter of this raised bed, the planters behind the pool, and other places in the yard.

The bushes in the center left edge of the picture are yellow and orange Tecomas ("Yellow bells") Like the banana, they were taken to the ground in last winter's frost, but have rebounded vigorously. The plants in the center right edge of the photo, and in the planter in the foreground, are Little John bottlebrushes, which seem to be quite frost-tolerant.

The snake in the garden

Here's another picture of our "lilies of the field" garden under the key lime tree. In addition to the nasturtiums, bachelor's button and larkspur are beginning to bloom.

All the citrus trees are in bloom now, and the smell is delightful. Unfortunately this week I have learned that for every gardening Eden, there is a snake determined to spoil the pleasure one can enjoy in it. The snake that is rearing its ugly head for me right now is seasonal allergies, something I'd previously thought myself immune to suffering. Ha!

Actually, allergies are not usually caused by citrus, or the other kind of things in my garden. Flowering plants like citrus and these nasturtiums are insect-pollinated rather than wind-pollinated, and usually the pollen grains produced by insect-pollinated plants are too large to be inhaled and cause trouble. It's more likely that my symptoms result from the neighbors' ash and mulberry trees, or from the current crop of spring weeds infesting every patch of ground in the Valley area.

New trees

Here are our two new bare-root peach trees in their circular berms. The recently pruned roses are beginning to leaf out, and of course the weeds are thriving. The large tree in the background is a Key lime which took quite a hit during the cold weather last month.

Pruning Time

We've spent the morning rather aggressively pruning things- part removing frost damage, part removing branches that aren't where we want them to be for one reason or the other. I went after the key lime tree with a particular vengeance. Not only has it been heavily frost damaged (limes are more susceptible to frost than other kinds of citrus), it also has particularly nasty thorns and we don't use too many key limes. They are so small that it's very time and labor-intensive to get any usable quantity of juice from them. So, in spite of the fact that as a certified Master Gardener, I know that citrus trees are really shrubs and are healthier if left to their own growth pattern, I decided to remove all branches below the height of my head. That way, I can get in underneath them and attend to other plants without the use of colorful metaphors of various kinds. We'll need to paint the truck for sunburn protection now, though, and we'll see what happens.

I also severely pruned the Valentine emu bushes in the front yard, and we may wind up removing them entirely. Although they are not frost-sensitive, they've gotten rather ratty-looking, and if they look ratty now, which is their blooming season, it may be time for them to go. We've also filled several industrial-size trash bags with prunings from lantana, bougainvillea, hibiscus, yellow bells, and Cape honeysuckle bushes. It all looks pretty barren and sad now, but based on past experience, should come back nicely within the next couple of months.