Saturday, January 22, 2011

Bearss Lime

The second of the citrus trees I'm reporting on is the Bearss Seedless Lime tree.  Again this tree is a dwarf variety that produced several wonderful limes this year. It grew quite a bit in its' first year and added some great flavor to our Asian themed dinners.  Let me tell you about having a lime tree in your own backyard....it's great! No need to buy lime juice!  Just go outside and pick one off the tree.  The lime flavor was sweeter than other limes I've tasted.  The only thing about this tree that I don't particularly like are the thorns.  When we had that severe freeze, we covered the citrus up with plankets and got poked on this particular plant.  However, it's a great lime to have around the garden. Remember that I am reporting from mid town Tucson in Zone 9a/b.
Here are the facts....
  1. Does not need a pollinator
  2. Low in saturated fat, cholesterol and sodium.  Good source of Calcium, Iron and Vitamin C.(The Lisbon Lemon and most other citrus have this health benefit.)
  3. Full sun(6+ hours of direct sun)
  4. Blooms in spring
  5. Keep ground semi-moist
  6. Growth is medium(but it grew nearly a foot longer in its' first year...if that's medium growth?)
  7. Grows to be a height of 10-20 feet and equally wide.
  8. Cold hardy to 32 degrees
  9. Pruning, remove shoots below the graft
  10. Fertilize spring, summer, and fall
Other "key" limes to plant are the Mexican, Indian or Key Lime trees.  They can be trained as trees or kept in their natural states as bushes. For more information on other citrus plants in the garden, type in their name from below into the search engine.
Several citrus trees I've written about already have been the Dancy Tangerine, Lisbon Lemon, the Nagami Kumquat, and Fukushu Kumquat.  More citrus on the way, stay tuned.....

1 comment:

Thanks for stopping by!