Makes great cherry lime aid, or strawberry lime aid.

Thanks Evan! I know you are also inundated with them...;-).

I have plenty of some fruits but most of you have me beat for variety, tree health, and fruit and blooms all year. Those limequats look good...never had one.

Thanks John! They taste just like key limes...I don't think I could tell them apart from the flavor alone. Great for pies!

I would love to put in a good lime tree...wonder if the limequat would do well here? Key limes, for sure, and most other limes I have seen, need a warmer winter than I have. LOL! Here I am wishing I could grow limes down here and there you are growing them up there! Speaking of winter, it's 73F here right now.....that's crazy even for SE Texas. The wind is just now switching around to the north and we are supposed to get a low of 37F tonight and 30F Sunday night.

Yeah, it's warm here also (60s), but it's going to get cold tonight and on Thursday, the high was 17 with wind chill 7...yuck!! John, about the limequat...I'm not sure what temps it can handle, but I have a Lakeland limequat from Record Buck farms. I asked them about it and they said that it is more cold-hardy than the key lime and the fruit tastes the same so they sell lots of them. It's more of a bush than a tree, but is constantly in bloom with fruits at varying stages of development. I really like it. I have two - no three....one was a defoliated rescue that is now beautiful, but only now really starting to kick into production. The other is very prolific...and the third is the adoptee that is stuck in the same pot with a Meyer. If you try one, I'd plant it near your house for protection...you can always string lights and put on a blanket for extra protection. It's one of my favorite trees.

Those look great- now that's a haul I am looking forward to! I think I will get actual key limes way before my limequat does anything but it will be fun to compare when I have both.

Great job Laura!

Are you aware that it take 64 kumquats 1 inch in diameter to equal the mass of 1 orange 4 inches diameter but it takes 16 kumquat to have the same surface area of 1 orange. Now in order to get the same volume, you will have to deal with 4 times the surface area of peal.

THANK GOD THE PEALS TASTE GOOD

6b Steve

Thanks Hobby and Steve! Steve, you always have the most interesting tidbits of information that I would not have thought of! I am juicing them now for the pie and will calculate roughly how many it takes to give me 1/2 cup. I'll report later. Hobby, I have been thinking of you because of my key limes. Ok, so I definitely think you need to get a thorny key lime! My thorny one and thornless ones are both about the same age (I think the thornless one is a little older and definitely taller) and they are both my son's roommates for the winter ;-), so identical conditions. Let me tell you....the thorny one has just started going crazy and will have blossoms coming out of the nodes of almost every branch. The thornless one....almost nothing. For that matter, the baboon lemon that has not lost one leaf and is also in his room, but not up by the window, is also going into a major bloom flush. I'm a happy camper!

Ok. So 25 limequat gave me 1 C juice...not bad. They are very juicy.

Laura....if you feel like the crust isn't up to par, let me know and I'll get rid of it for you! That's a beautiful pie and I'm sure just as tasty. Did you use a graham cracker crust? I have been cheating and using store-bought crusts but they have been getting steadily worse. I don't think they even use graham crackers in them any more.

Thanks for the details on the Lakeland limequat.

John, it is a homemade crust. I bring up the graham crackers in my vitamix...easy peasy...i had two pieces and am stuffed!

Making a mental note to pick up graham crackers soon....yes, I can tell yours is homemade...and that's a very good thing in my book! I grew up with homemade dishes and try to carry on with that good example. Few of us can come up to the example of my sister-in-law though. She says if your ingredients have ingredients, you aren't really cooking :>) Certainly, we can make some exceptions but I think it's time to ditch the pre-made so-called graham cracker crusts I have been using.

Would you say your limequat produces a similar quantity to your key lime? Specifically the thorny key lime? I assume that your limequat is younger than your others so may not be on the same level yet but a rough guess is totally fine.

Sammers, I still do not have actual key limes from either of my trees. The thorny one is now blooming everywhere, but it will be a while before it has fruits. I think for the size of the tree, the limequat produces more. All but two of those limes came from a tree that is less than a foot tall - although it is probably about two feet wide. Let me see if I can snap a pic...

Here are a couple of pics. It is hard for me to get a good pic since it is jammed between other trees. It is not that big, but the branches sprawl out and dangle below the side of the pot. Those lower branches were weighed down with the limes. It is also loaded with tiny fruitlets and has some buds. For the size of the tree, it is amazing how much it produces.

Laura, that's awesome! its such a neat tree. Its nice that it tastes similar to the key lime.