Lemons bloom and fruit year round in temporate climates like L.A. Most people have Meyers nowadays. I had to go out of my way to get a Eureka tree (I think it's a Eureka (can't remember for sure). It has proper acidic lemons. Meyers are sweet and perfect for sweet marmalade. There are (were pre-pandemic, at least..l don't go to the stores) always Meyers in the grocery stores in SoCal. I wouldn't be surprised if you found them near you.

Ripe equals a good size, yellow rind, are fragrant, a little give when squeezed (as opposed to rock hard), heavy in the hand. Left on the tree they just get bigger, with thicker rinds, until the squirrels or birds get them, they dry out, or rot. Even underripe lemons are useable if they're at least mostly yellow.

A meyer lemon is a cross between a lemon( maybe eureka) and a mandarin orange. I am in Iowa and have seen them in the stores....thinking Sams? But I have a son and his family who live in the chicago area....thinking Marianos might be a good bet.

My brother and sister il law lived in Phoenix and had many fruit trees, and while I guess they did bear all year around to some extent, when i visited in march the grapefruit were winding down and she was begging people to take lemons and they rakeds ome oranges into the trash. She said some friends came and got them for marmalade but they couldn't be bothered,

Anyhow as i recall late February and March were prime citrus in Phoenix.

plllog is right about them bearing fruit year round here in SoCal, although Meyers have a shorter growing season. That also can mean a higher price. We have a Eureka lemon tree that's very old and was here when we bought the house. It's always loaded with lemons, as are all of our neighbors' lemon trees. Right now many of ours are green but more than enough yellow ones for me to use. It's pretty easy to find Meyers in stores here. My own preference are the more acidic Eurekas or Lisbons.

If push comes to shove and you can't find Meyers, you could try using equal parts regular lemon juice/zest with orange juice/zest (also tangerine or Mandarin orange).

It's funny...there are lemons trees everywhere here. People can't begin to give them all away, yet they never get much below about 50 cents each, at least for what I considerdecent lemons. I've seen those bags of them at TJ's but they're usually pretty small.

ETA - I had to check...looks like Meyer lemon season here is around November-December to April-May.

plllog, we didn't have a lemon tree at our previous home. However, a neighbor would put a huge container of lemons in his front yard for anyone to take. Each time he did I wanted to take ALL of them. My nicer self told me to wait for other neighbors to take some. I'd only take a few then wait for the next day hoping most of them would still be there. To delight, they almost always were, so I'd wait until it got dark and go hoard the rest. :-) Now I'M the one trying to give lemons away!

Doesn't citrus fruit need a certain amount of cold temperatures to lose its green color? I've had a Meyer lemon and other citrus trees, and the fall/winter months here are the main harvest season. Fruits can be ripe yet still green if the weather hasn't been cold enough. Commercial producers may treat green fruits to get them to the 'proper' color, I understand.

I just pulled my Meyer inside a couple weeks ago. Lost track of how old it is. Maybe i've had it for 5-6 years and purchased a 3-4 year old. Last year i had three fruits. This year 18. Most are green and barely turning. Last year all three were very ripe in Sept.

When mine started to flower last winter----and for a very long time, i did some hand polinating ever couple days with a toothbrush.

I thought Meyer lemons fuited just once a year and thought that is why we only see them in stores during that time. That time is now.. At least i think so. They are listed in stock. Or maybe the new variety is producing year round.

No idea if mine will ripen but plan to preserve some and some type of marmelade.

So what i can find out with a quick search...fruit like the Meyer will flower and produce year round but not at all abundant. It is the Fall cooler months they produce enough for an abundant havest to ship and share. EastCoast November-March. May rap up in Febuary. With such a thin skin it has a shorter shelf/travel life. No bitter thick pith like a regular lemon.

That makes sense. My mother's Meyer is mature and always in fruit year round, but her garden has only seen frost about twice in my lifetime. I’ve never had frost in 20 years where I am (10 years for the lemon tree). i don't know what ”colder” means to you all, We get anxious if the low gets below 50F, and start shielding our plants below 45F. The lemons—all kinds—get ripe and yellow if the temperature never gets below 55F. It's sun they need to be yellow.

Most citrus is seasonal and here backyard oranges and many others are ready for harvest late winter to early spring. Some citrus are earlier, some later. I recently noticed Buddha’s hands ripe in a friend's garden, but I think they may have been hanging out all summer, waiting for some love—he wouldn't let me pick one! They make great marmalade. The pomelos were getting big, but well short of harvest, as were the grapefruits. But lemons flower year round and set fruit in due course. If you don't pick them, however, they don’t flower, so commercial orchards may kind of force a season. I don't know. Since Meyers have orange parents, that might make them more inclined to be seasonal, but at least some of them are on a more lemony schedule.

Here in FL, my Meyer lemon flowered and fruited once yearly, but the fruit could stay on the tree for a very long while without dropping. The rinds would thicken a bit, the longer they stayed on the tree.

Sadly, that tree died of old age some years ago - it was between 40-50 years old. Now it's almost impossible to grow citrus because of greening disease. I lost all my oranges, a red grapefruit and a variegated lemon to it over the past several years 😕

There was a small Meyer tree here when we bought our house. It didn't look good and finally bit the dust. I don't know how old our Eureka lemon tree is. It's got to be majorly senior but still prolific.

Linnae56, My Meyer is 12 years old; it is in a pot and I keep it small. Once again it is loaded and getting ripe. Mine turn orange when ripe. You may have some in your stores and not realize they are Meyer Lemons.

I haven't made marmalade from them, but may try a jar or two this year. I hope to take a few to T'Day because those folks love lemonade.

Ouch! Carol, I feel for you! Losing all those must hurt like the dickens! :( My folks saved their pomegranate from whitefly with diligent washing with Simple Green, but I don't think there's any cure for tree diseases. Lucky for me, the agriculture people were by a few weeks ago and pronounced my lemon healthy. Sigh of relief

My Meyer lemon tree does not have fruit all year, and the slow season is the summer to fall. I get the most during the winter and spring. I had a Valencia orange tree at my house in Venice, and it always had oranges, however. My neighbor in Cathedral City has a huge lemon tree that hangs over her wall into my yard, and so I get lemons from that - they even fall into my yard. I do not know what kind of lemon tree it is, but it might be Eureka. The lemons are quite large and have a rather thick, hard rind, but they are also very juicy.

I would hate to have to pay any price for lemons at a store, but I have done it on rare occasions. I tend to have more limes than lemons, and I freeze lemons and limes when I have too many of them. I've never frozen oranges, however, as I am able to eat or juice whatever I have, and I can go through a lot of them.

I have had a Meyer lemon tree for over 35 years and it produces fruit all year long. I live on the Central Coast (Santa Cruz) CA. It gets so loaded with fruit that we have to pick most of the lemons and put them in a large box at the end of the driveway.

I also have a Eureka lemon that doesn't produce as much fruit. When I want really tart lemon flavor I use the Eureka. I make lemon curd using the Meyer lemon which is sweeter.

I also have a Washington navel orange for juice/eating and a Key Lime that produced over 60 limes this year. We juiced them and froze the juice to make a Key lime pie later. I was told that you can't grow Key limes here because it is not tropical enough. I guess the experts were wrong.

There are two kinds of Meyers. The original Meyer can still be found on many residential properties. But all the original commercial Meyer trees were ordered destroyed in the late '40's when they were found to harbor a devastating virus that affected other citrus.

You can still find homes with the original Meyer trees as residential properties were exempt from removal. When properly cared for, in-ground Meyers can live upwards of 75+ years, but production tends to drop off in its 'old age'.

The only variety sold now is the Improved Meyer (it will specifically be labeled that) which was a virus-free plant that was found and cloned by UC Davis (CA) for retail release in 1975. The IM is actually a shrub; to grow it as a tree it is grafted onto rootstock. It's important when planting to never cover the graft with soil; the rootstock produces an inferior, bitter, but very vigorous fruit that will overtake over the Meyer if you don't prune it off.

Meyers and Improved Meyers do better in ground as they have a deep taproot. The lemons don't have their fullest flavor/aroma until the plant is mature, about 8-10 yrs. Production is heaviest in late winter/early spring, but generally tapers off by May or so. Mature plants will continue to produce lemons year-round, but not as heavily as the first flush.

Ripening is temperature and light dependent. They like warm days with cool nights, and lots of UV. Extreme heat, however, will stress them; the leaves will curl up to conserve moisture during the day, then relax open again when it cools down. They are also heavy feeders (like roses); it is almost impossible to overfeed an in-ground Meyer.

A mature IM can easily produce 75-100+ lbs. of fruit.

Periodically I see Meyer Lemons at Aldis.

Interesting comments, thanks. I am saving all the information you are sending me.

My DIL sent me a photo of their tree that is growing at their rental house in LA. . Definitely tree like, rather than my potted IML, which is wider than it is tall.

The lemons on their tree are bumpy, and a light yellow in color. The single lemon on my IML was very round and a really warm yellow - now that I know, that must be because of the tangerine parentage. So I'm guessing theirs is a different kind than mine.

I did find Meyer lemons at Trader Joes's yesterday! But they look different than mine did. A lighter yellow, and with a pointy end. When I sliced them, they look the same inside, though. Very thin skin, with minimal white pith. I hope the marmalade will taste as good.

The tree I had bore round yellow-orange fruits with thin, smooth skin that could easily be mistaken for an orange. I had oranges too, at that time, and sometimes had to scratch the peel & sniff to be sure which fruits were which.

I've also noticed Meyers in the stores are not like that. Last time I saw some, they were yellower, smaller and had pointy ends.

I wonder if they are ripe at TJs I always heard that yellow-orange was ripe, and that what is true with mine.

I don't think they were ripe. Or a different cultivar. They tasted just as sour as regular lemons.

I made the second, larger batch of marmalade, and it was pretty bitter. I actually rather like bitter, and intentionally BUY bitter orange marmalade, so I'll eat it, but I don't think the family members I had hoped to give it to will like it. Not much like the taste of the tiny batch I made from my single lemon off my own tree.

Looks like I'll need to wait a year for my tree to flower and fruit before I can make the good stuff.

Actually, when Meyers get REALLY ripe, they turn orange. If you didn't know they were lemons, you'd swear it was just a small orange!

I keep trying to grow a Bearss Lime (yes, not misspelled; that's its true name) but they are super-fussy about water, unlike Meyers. When I would pick them, my spouse would get all confused because the Meyers were turning orange but the Bearss turn yellow when ripe!

Hi Linnea, I too have one fruit growing on my Meyer Lemon. It's still pretty small so it has a ways to go. My husband doesn't think it's going to make it all the way since I've had lots of trouble with this tree, but I told him that I would make a 10 course meal around this one lemon if I have to, LOL.

Just a quick up-date having a different season with my meyer this year. Like posted above. i pulled it into the kitchen in October,(?), with 18 fruits...mostly green and some turning yellow. A few now dark, almost orange. Deep yellow.

Used one in my cranberry sauce Thanksgiving. So much better than the usual orange.

Just ordered a key lime tree as a holiday gift for me.

So yes, in a sunny winter window, a meyer will continue to ripen even with lower winter sun hours.

I picked the last 2 fruits off the tree at my son's house in LA. They never used any. I read the tag still on the tree; and it turned out they are Bearss limes, not lemons as I thought they were.

They are moving soon, and hopefully I can tell them what to plant in their new yard.

So I think I'll try making marmalade from these 2 limes. Hopefully it will turn out as well as the ONE lemon Improved Meyer Lemon marmalade from my little potted tree back home in Chicago turned out.

My friend gave me some huge lemons. Eureka ones probably. However, i used two of them to make Sunset Favorite Recipes version of Meyer lemon marmalade. They worked fine, and so, so easy to make. i got 7 jars of it from just two huge lemons.

linnea, I hope your marmalade turned out well. I love the Bearss limes, they are seedless and full of juice! A really wonderful citrus, although they don't bear all year the way Improved Meyers do.