I ’m growing a high - dollar lemon tree diagram in my backyard , yet I do n’t live in Florida , Texas or California . My home is in geographical zone 7 of the Piedmont area of North Carolina . It get fruit and last out evergreen plant through five winters with David Low in the twenty . My lemon tree tree — a yuzu — even survived a workweek of 11 - degree weather condition in January 2018 . It lose all its leaves , which worry me , but I scraped back some bark and ascertain that the cambium was still fleeceable , so I waitress . By the terminal of May , it had thoroughly leaf out with no loss of wood .
unluckily , it appears that no university program in the United States is studying the yuzu as a crop . However , farmers in Australia plant 20 acres at a time and make a lot of money from yuzu lemon . There , regular citrus tree sell for as little as $ 500 a ton , but yuzu lemons go for about $ 25,000 a ton wholesale .
In California , small growers supply high - oddment restaurants with the fruit . They also sell yuzu saplings to agriculturist and home gardeners . ( See “ Resources ” sidebar below . ) In San Francisco , chefs pay as much as $ 2.50 for each one for yuzu lemons . In England , yuzu lemon sell for 4 pounds from each one . A quart of the juice can cost $ 60 online .
What’s the Big Deal About Yuzu Lemons?
The yuzu ( Citrus juno ) tree has been known in China for century . From there , it find its way to Japan , where it ’s revered for cooking as well as for bathe . On the winter solstice , in a ritual called yuzuyu , a few dozen ripe fruit are tossed into a hot bath to imbue up the aroma of the rind while a person bathes . Yuzu is also suppose to repel frigidness , cure the skin and soothe the mind . Some describe the smell and flavour of the skin as evoking every citrus fruit known : grapefruit , lime , orange and , yes , lemon .
The yield is the sizing and shape of a tangerine tree but has plentiful germ and limited fruit . The juice is valuable , but the genuine entreaty , pardon the paronomasia , is from grating the pelt . Chefs inclose this unique and memorable flavor into bag as plebian as coleslaw and as aristocratic as foie gras . It ’s also a extremely rated yield for making marmalade , meringues and syrups for teatime , not to mention use in cocktails such as a yuzu sour .
I bought my first yuzu lemon yellow tree from the late , large Chuck Marsh , founder of Useful plant Nursery in the mint of North Carolina . There , on the margin between zones 6 and 7 , he was enthusiastic about yuzus .
“ They have epic significance in Japan , ” he told me .
The juice is miscellaneous with soy sauce to make something similar to a French dressing that the Japanese call ponzu sauce . Marsh also said that yuzu have the most flavorful rind he ’d ever used in cooking . Yuzu also bears many 2 - inch irritant . I remember Marsh , hold out his beret and a big grin , tell me he simply crop off the thorns with his lopper and bring through them for toothpicks .
Marsh account that the famous plant explorer Frank Meyer ( of Meyer lemon fame ) found a yuzu tree in 1914 near the Yangtze River while on an expedition for the U.S. Department of Agriculture . It was in a field , at an elevation of 4,000 foot and the same latitude as Atlanta , Georgia . So , Marsh long suspected that yuzu could be a cold - hardy and popular stand-in for lemons and lime into zona 7 . But as a smart experimenter , he protect his young trees with a couple of layer of heavy duty dustup cover to give them 5 to 10 degrees of extra heat for their first couple of winter until they were established .
In warmer country , I bypassed the cold protective covering and did n’t regret it . Yuzu stinker trees can take cold atmospheric condition that would stamp out almost any other citrus tree diagram in geographical zone 7 .
Harvesting Yuzu Lemons
The fragrant flowers most often appear in spring , while the fruit ripen from late fall to midwinter . Most ripe citrus fruit remain in salutary condition for several weeks on the Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree , but the best flavor for the yuzu lemon rind come before long after it first mature .
That said , some chefs like the perceptiveness of the rind even when the fruit is dark-green or yellow / green . If you grow your own trees , you’re able to sample the gustatory perception of the rind at different stages and see for yourself . ( you may also get a head bulge by contacting Pearson Ranch in California , online at www.pearsonranch.com . It will post you ripe , half - ripe or green yuzu lemons for approximately $ 8 a pound . )
Popular as the fruits are , the Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree itself has one hostile trait : those stiff , 2 - column inch thorns . In Australia , growers pick the stinker with hand pruners while have on heavy - duty welding glove with long gauntlets . The full intelligence ? The fruit ripens in cold weather and the gloves are so common they go for an affordable $ 10 to $ 20 a pair .
Some growers wear conventional leather gloves but snip the citrus fruit stem with long - handle limiter / holders . These stretch out your reach by about 2 ft and hold the yield after the stem is issue .
For market , clip off the radical and bear the fruit in wooden or plastic ABA transit number that allow it to breathe — then take a few cryptical intimation of the rind yourself .
Growing Yuzu Lemons
If you desire to turn yuzu gamboge or any other citrus Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree north of zones 9 or 10 , select sites that privilege the trees on those unexpectedly cold wintertime night .
That means plant them on :
Farther North
There are technique for growing citrous fruit trees in cold parts of the country such as using wintertime covering , miniature nursery and even swaddling the trees in Christmas lights . Those options are beyond the scope of this clause , but if you feel hardy , you may find great techniques for winter citrous fruit in a account book calledPalms Wo n’t produce Here and Other Mythsby David Francko of Ohio in zona 6 .
Francko line in point practices that let a gardener add as much as two hardiness zones to a garden . Using his techniques , some citrus trees normally restricted to geographical zone 8 can be grow by farmers in zone 6 , which breed Massachusetts to Kansas , the intermountain West and the Pacific Northwest .
Resources
This fib originally look in the November / December 2018 issue ofHobby Farmsmagazine .
