Gardening : Pucker Up to the Luscious Lemon
Of everything in the kitchen, perhaps only baking soda is as useful as the lemon--and baking soda doesn’t look nearly as pretty sitting in a bowl on the counter.
Southern California lemon lovers who are also gardeners are lucky souls. For $40 to $50, you can buy a good-sized tree that will bear fruit all year and pay back your investment in a matter of months.
One of the most popular varieties is the Eureka. Its gorgeous fruit is standard size, and its tree has the advantage of being thornless--but it can also be rather straggly. The Lisbon will give you a fuller tree, but it does have thorns.
The Meyer has thin skins and bears smaller fruit, which some people prefer. Especially well suited for containers is the Ponderosa, which produces gigantic fruit (the record was an eight-pounder grown in Whittier) and grows vigorously.
Though lemons can take some dappled shade during the heat of the day, the ideal spot is sunny and warm. Plant in well-cultivated soil and dig a big hole to give the roots plenty of room to spread. Mounding a watering basin around the base is helpful.
Water a newly planted tree thoroughly once or twice a week for the first three months or so; stretch this schedule out to every week and a half or so after you start to see healthy new growth on the tree. When the tree has been in your yard for a year, it will need watering only every two weeks; fully mature trees need a good deep drink as infrequently as every six weeks--just monitor the soil and weather conditions carefully.
Feed with citrus food about three times a year. Too-frequent fertilizing can cause the lemons to fall off the tree or to split.
Ree Reeder, the author of “Lemon Twist--The No-Salt-Added Cookbook” and a lemon aficionado, suggests picking lemons when they’re still green. “Only the Meyer should be picked when it’s almost fully yellow,” Reeder says. “If the fruit ripens on the tree, it loses its acidity.” She says professional growers pick by size--the Eureka, for instance, is 2 1/2 inches in diameter and virtually solid green when it is harvested.
And that acidity is all-important: It’s what gives the lemon its uncanny ability to masquerade as salt in foods, what helps it spur spices to new heights of flavor.
Reeder will lead a talk on how to select, grow, harvest and cook lemons at 2 p.m. Sunday at the South Coast Botanic Garden. One of the tidbits she’ll be sharing is her prediction that, if the ‘80s were the decade of oat bran, the ‘90s may be the era of lemon rind.
“Several recent studies have shown that the oil from lemon peel may reduce the risk of nitrite/nitrate-induced cancer,” Reeder says. She recommends juicing a lemon and blending the juice with water and a paste you’ve made from pulverized lemon rind and sugar. “It’s delicious lemonade to drink with a hot dog and may counteract the effects of preservatives,” she says.
The white layer of the peel contains pectin, which, according to Reeder, helps reduce cholesterol. “Some people say they find the white bitter, but I don’t. I always include it,” she says.
The Vitamin C in lemon aids in the absorption of iron, so Reeder advocates using lemon-based sauces on meats and chickens to boost their nutritional value.
Some other lemony tips:
* Pick leaves from your lemon tree and coat them with chocolate for beautiful and easy candy leaves with which to decorate cakes or candy treats. The leaves are nontoxic and have a lovely shape.
* Rub your cutting board with a squeezed lemon before you throw the lemon out--the juice neutralizes even the strongest odors.
* Mix a little lemon juice with some honey and a good splash of whiskey the next time you have a cough or cold. The concoction tastes delicious, soothes your throat and helps you sleep like a baby.
* Comb fresh lemon juice through your hair when you’re at the beach for natural and gentle highlights.
* Mix a tablespoon of lemon juice with a cup of low-fat cottage cheese and whirl in your blender until smooth. You’ll get a tasty mock sour cream with twice the calcium and a fraction of the fat of the real thing.
* Make a thick potion of lemon juice and salt to clean copper and aluminum. Although serious coin collectors would never clean their coins this way, the mixture does an excellent job for pennies and is considerably safer to handle than caustic commercial cleaners.
* Wrap lemons tightly in plastic and they’ll keep for months in your refrigerator. Or leave them on your tree until you need them--they’ll be fine for weeks. Just remember that the riper the lemon is, the sweeter and less acidic it is.
Reeder will have copies of her cookbook available for sale after her lecture. The book is liberally sprinkled with dozens of additional lemon facts.
The South Coast Botanic Garden is located at 26300 Crenshaw Blvd. on the Palos Verdes Peninsula. Admission is $3 for adults, $1.50 for seniors and students and 75 cents for children ages 5-12. Younger children are free. There is no charge for the lecture and reservations are not required. For more information, call (213) 772-5813.
