If you like cooking and baking, you often have lemons at home. The sour, but very vitamin-rich juice is often used as an acidulant for various dishes and drinks. Depending on the variety, lemons have between around 20 and 50 seeds. Instead of simply throwing them away, you can easily grow a lemon tree out of them. It just takes a while to get your own harvest, because home-grown lemon trees only bloom and bear fruit after eight to twelve years at the earliest.
How to grow a lemon tree from a seed?
To grow a lemon tree from a core, you need a fresh lemon core, a plant pot, potting soil and pebbles. Place a layer of pebbles in the pot, fill it with potting soil and insert the cleaned core approx. 1 cm deep. Keep the soil moist and warm and ensure high humidity. After germination, care for the lemon tree in a bright and protected location, water and fertilize regularly.
Lemon tree is suitable for balconies, gardens and winter gardens
Unlike many other plants, a lemon tree can be sown quite easily and then, in most cases, grow into a pretty houseplant within a few weeks or months. This makes the lemon a wonderful horticultural experiment for children as well as for adults who don't yet have a lot of experience in growing plants.
Procuring the seeds
You can get the right seeds cheaply in every supermarket and discount store: Simply choose a fresh, fully ripe lemon and take it home. It doesn't even have to be an organic lemon, just the fruit shouldn't have been irradiated - this treatment makes the seeds unable to germinate. Your local supermarket may even label the individual varieties so you can choose accordingly. The fruits of the “four-season lemon” (Lunario) and the Eureka lemon are often found in stores. The “Eureka” in particular is quite sensitive to cold, but is also rather slow-growing with lots of fruit.
Planting a lemon seed
You can also find everything else you need to plant a lemon seed in your supermarket. You need
- a plant pot
- Growing soil (can be bought in small bags)
- and small pebbles
Fill a layer of pebbles at the bottom of the plant pot. These ensure that excess irrigation water is quickly drained away and waterlogging, which is deadly for the plant, is avoided. Fill the pot with potting soil and place the cleaned lemon core in it. It should be covered with soil by a maximum of one centimeter. Pour the soil and then put a clear plastic bag over the pot - this helps to develop high humidity. The pot goes in a moderately bright but very warm location. The lemon seed will germinate within a few weeks.
Care for the lemon tree properly
As soon as the first green shoots emerge from the soil, you should remove the plastic bag. From now on it gets a little more complicated, because as easy as it is to germinate a lemon seed, the resulting lemon needs to be cared for just as carefully. Lemons need
- a very bright and protected location
- lots of sun and warmth
- need to be watered regularly
- but not too much either
- fertilizer regularly from the age of approx. 6 months
- lots of space
- fresh air on the balcony or in the garden in summer
- a cool but frost-free and bright place in winter
Tips & Tricks
Of course you can also grow your lemon tree from a cutting, if one is available.
