By Jillian Saxty, ABG Project Pick Coordinator
I have been running ABG’s Project Pick, with the help of many wonderful volunteers and ABG members, for over a decade and it still amazes me just how many fruit trees we have in Alameda, especially lemon trees.
During the winter months, January through March, we have so many oranges, grapefruits, mandarins and lemons, I call it the ‘Citrus Tsunami’. Even this winter, though we were battered with storms making it difficult to schedule volunteers, we still managed to harvest over 2700 lbs of citrus just in the first three months of 2023.
We have many varieties of lemons that grow exceptionally well in our city, but the most popular and abundant are our Meyer lemons. Did you know they’re a cross between a lemon and a mandarin? That’s what gives them their lovely sweet and flavorful taste. They are also self-pollinating and can bear fruit once or twice a year.
It’s not difficult to take care of your lemon tree. Lemon trees can be pruned after harvesting to encourage new growth and increased fruit production. Lemon trees usually flower in spring, so prune your lemon trees before they flower to ensure you get a large yield. Use clippers or pruning shears to remove branches on the inside and outside of the canopy, as well as any suckers that grow from below the graft. Avoid pruning off more than a third of the tree at once. Try to keep the tree to a manageable height (10-12’) so you can easily pick the fruit.
It’s a good idea to fertilize your tree with citrus specific (or high-nitrogen or slow-release all-purpose) fertilizer in Jan/Feb, Mar/Apr and Aug/Sep.
If you’d like to learn more about taking care of fruit trees, check out our website (https://alamedabackyardgrowers.org/category/topics/fruit-trees/) or sign up for one of our pruning workshops, typically held at Farm2Market at the Alameda Point, by checking our calendar (https://alamedabackyardgrowers.org/calendar/).
As you travel around Alameda, you’ll see lemon trees everywhere. Although Project Pick has several hundred dedicated fruit donors, many who contact us every year, we only harvest a tiny fraction of the lemons that grow in our city. All the fruit we collect is donated to the Alameda Food Bank which is under tremendous pressure as they provide food for nearly 2,300 Island families. The fresh, local produce is much appreciated.
You can contact Project Pick (info@alamedabackyardgrowers.org) and we’ll either collect fruit you’ve already picked, or can have volunteers harvest your tree if you need assistance.
Even without Project Pick, wouldn’t it be fantastic if everyone with a lemon tree in Alameda harvested and shared their lemons with their neighbors? With so many lemons available in the winter, no one should ever have to buy one!
Project Pick lemon haul