Life is Giving me Lemons

And I'm delighted with them

My lemons are ripening.

I bought this Meyer Lemon, and a Lime, almost two years ago. The lime hasn’t set fruit, although it has bloomed on and off, but perhaps next year! They must come inside in winter, as it is just a little too cold in my part of Texas for them to stay out and be planted in the ground. They are, in a way, my most cosseted plants. I added a Winter Frost Satsuma to the citrus this spring, which nominally is hardy but I don’t want to risk it, so it will also live in a pot and come indoors during the cold snaps.

I’ve been pushing the boundaries with the garden since we moved in, or almost since then. I spent the first year dabbling, splashed in the second year with major setbacks, and this, the third growing season, saw huge leaps and bounds towards my ultimate goal.

Which of course will evolve with time. It already has, for that matter, as I have learned and made adjustments. Life is like this… or rather, it should be.

We all know people who are too brittle to adjust to realities. People who can’t stand the cold snaps, and wither and die when there are setbacks or their dreams come up against the harsh realities of winter in their lives. When life gives them lemons, they pucker up and wail disconsolately that they were not also given sugar.

I think we also all know people who understand that in order to be given lemons, you must first roll up your sleeves, make the right soil mix that citrus needs, find the appropriate place to plant them, or, in my case, realize that planting them in the soil was the wrong way to success and put them in a pot. Then you grow the plant - you can leapfrog towards your goal if you can invest in a plant, but if you can’t afford that, you save seeds and start seedlings. Everyone starts from a different place, has different resources, and is willing to put different levels of effort into this whole lemon affair.

Life doesn’t just hand you lemons. Nor does it hand you sugar, and sugar cane is a whole lot harder to grow than citrus, at least in my area. I suppose I could say you could grow sugar beets, but again, depends on where you are. Fortunately, honeybees are found anywhere humans have permanent habitations, and honey is delicious in lemonade. You just have to learn how to handle them, harvest the honey, and oh, yeah, keep them alive through the winter, too. Frankly, the most complex part of the whole equation is safe potable water, and even that is possible if you know how to distill or filter it sufficiently. There’s a reason that up until very recently in human history your lemonade would have been fermented sufficiently to kill microbial life also present in that refreshing beverage.

Lemonade is harder than you think it is. So is life. When life hands you anything, contemplate it and think about repercussions of how you grasp it. Nettles are nutritious and even delicious, but if you hesitate while reaching out rather than grabbing, you’ll have regrets. Learning will occur, no matter what’s being handed out. It might hurt. Still, lessons have a way of lasting, as do lemon trees, if you take care of them. Besides which, you can do so much with lemons. Lemonade is only one of many things: lemon meringue, lemon curd, lemon marmalade, preserved lemons for tagines, lemon in your carnitas to give them a citrus tang cutting through the rich pork fat, lemon peel in fruit cake, lemon… I could go on and on.

Life is an adventure, if you take it in the right way, and let your goals and expectations flex with whatever opportunities unexpectedly come your way. Surprises can be fun! They can also teach you things about yourself you never knew.

Life may not give you lemons. But if you want, I’ll save you a seed and send it to you when I’m harvesting mine.