Of course.

Yes. They can be fussy little plants. Similar to an orchid that needs tending. But you baby a sourdough starter I think. A co-worker requested one of my Meyer lemons and grew from the seed. Gave us a little plant and to others. Slow growers. Mine died but I have the big mother plant potted about to go out on the deck after living in the kitchen all winter.

Good soil and a little organic food diluted at first.

Seeds from hybrids will not always come true to form. Yes, you can grow a nice little tree from it but any fruit it produces may or may not taste anything like that from the mother tree. And it will take a good number of years before it decides to produce anything anyway.

And you are just wasting your efforts if you try to use an organic fertilizer for a container plant.

Sometimes asking a garden specific question makes more sense on a garden specific forum :-)

I know, Gardengal, but I know the people in this forum. I wasn't looking for how to cultivate lemons advice. Just wanted to know if my sprouts would turn into a plant. Or, I should say, have a hope of it. If it were a risible question, the answer to which was don't be a fool, that's a waste of potting soil, I would put them in the compost. Instead, I'll put them in a pot and hope for a stem and some leaves.. And if it turns into a tree years down the road, I'll find somewhere to plant it, and if it has fruit, I'll be amazed. Meanwhile, it can hang out in my kitchen window with the orchids and anonyplants.

Thanks, everybody!

And now I'm hearing "Lemon tree, very pretty..." in my head. Cute song and I hope your seeds make you some cute little plants to make you smile!

Good question, @plllog. I've never tried that, but I might now that I know they will sprout.

YES, you can do this with any citrus seed. I have numerous orange trees started from eaten oranges. None have produced anything yet but they're only 7-8 yrs. old now, LOL. I plant them in my yard, 9A-9B area, just for the butterflies to have a host plant.

I grow three varieties of dwarf sunflowers every fall so I have sunflowers all winter in the home.

Nothing wrong with watching something grow like an avocado pit or sweet potato slips.

You will most definitely get citrus trees if you plant your seeds.

Some citrus will grow true from seed, however even some that will are grafted onto hardy rootstocks because they can be susceptible to nematodes or disease.

I have a Key lime I started from seed and it's now taller than I am, but has only a few fruits forming because it's still very young. My Ponkan tangerine finally succumbed to citrus greening, but I have some seeds I saved and plan on starting them.

You might want to check this out @ the Citrus forum...

Yes, you can plant the seeds and have a pretty little plant. Meyers are bred to bear young, so if you treat it with care - no winter chill, lots of light (lamps - don't depend on window sunshine), flush the salts out of the pot regularly (citrus are HEAVY feeders) - you'll see a Meyer start to set fruits in 2-4 years.

Most citrus, however, do not bear with regularity until they're 8-12 yrs old.

Citrus harvest is normally late winter/early-to-mid spring. The biggest mistake most people make is thinking a sunny window in wintertime in the Northern US will work. It won't.

A citrus plant needs 6-8 hrs high UV light in the winter. In FL and CA, even when days are overcast, the UV factor can be very high.

To set fruit, citrus require specialized citrus fertilizer with a high iron content. The diet of citrus is actually quite similar to roses. They also have a very deep taproot, so a 6" pot that's 15" tall is better than a 10" pot that's only 6" tall.

Regular potting soil will get exhausted quickly. Water thoroughly but let it dry out to the first 1.5" to 2" of soil in between waterings; but do water regularly. Citrus are not drought tolerant, especially if they're not in the ground. Mulching the pot will help, but don't pile it against the stem.

So, what am I doing right/wrong. I have a five foot Meyer lemon tree in my kitchen, 8 years old, producing fruit. Two fruits today. Slow to ripen but who cares, it has been producing for 5 years. It will go out side my kitchen deck as soon s the weather clears. (we had snow/frost just yesterday morning). Good grief, stop telling those in cold climates they cannot grow fruit. Such a beautiful tree we love.

Yes to your watering/mulching/food. But so wrong in other advice.

just don't plant the seeds in straight miracle grow ... and when was the last time you replaced the soil in your lemon tree pot?

My lemon tree is in the ground. It's not Meyer. It's a lovely acidic true lemon. It was planted as a juvenile but was bearing within a year or two. Now it's covered in lemons. I live in the citrus belt. Lemons here fruit year round.

I planted my seeds in a little pot with organic potting soil, but they kind of slipped. I put a piece of clay flower pot in the bottom, like my father taught me to do for orchids, so the soil wouldn't wash out. There was also a little bark. I think it drains too well, so I'm being careful with the water. It's in a Southern Exposure greenhouse bay. The orchids bloom there, and they don't bloom if they don't get sun stressed, so I think it'll be okay. I'm more worried about the seeds setting and the sprouts finding their way up. We'll see what happens. :)

>>So, what am I doing right/wrong. I have a five foot Meyer lemon tree in my kitchen, 8 years old, producing fruit. Two fruits today. Slow to ripen but who cares, it has been producing for 5 years. It will go out side my kitchen deck as soon s the weather clears. (we had snow/frost just yesterday morning). Good grief, stop telling those in cold climates they cannot grow fruit. Such a beautiful tree we love.>>

I never said you COULDN'T grow citrus in Northern climates. It's merely more work than an aspidistra or a Kentia belmoriana. Many people grow them in pots very successfully.

However, if you want to bear the maximum, you must feed it, simple as that. Citrus are like roses - they'll live in lousy conditions, but without optimum nutrition, they don't produce as well nor do they live as long.

Meyers, btw, unless you have access to one of the pre-1965 trees, are now only sold as "Improved Meyer". Meyers were taken out of production and all commercial stock destroyed when it was found they were host to a serious plant virus.

So in planting a Meyer seed from a commercial Meyer, it may or may not be a tree (the original Meyer; only one small commercial nursery was allowed to continue selling their stock until exhausted) or a dwarf/tree/bush (Improved Meyer).

Residential trees were unaffected, but it was almost 20 yrs before the "Improved Meyer" was hybridized and then cloned in enough quantity to return to wholesale and retail outlets.

Meyers are specifically bred to produce high yields. They will do so up to their last dying leaf, so to speak!

We have three of them, in ground. Except for fertilizing and an occasional watering they need no care. Properly fertilized, a Meyer will produce for upwards of 75+ years before declining.

An average crop will range from 75-150 POUNDS of Meyers. After about 8 yrs, production of well-tended trees will be year-round, although heaviest flush is always in early spring.

This was the smallest of our Meyers at 8 years of age in 2011. I bought two at the same time, and interestingly enough, the one in our front yard took more of a tree shape, while this one spread out more into a bush. The oldest, a Meyer that grew from a dropped seed (and is therefore a true bush shape), is more than twice as wide/tall.

That is great. I was responding to this...

"Citrus harvest is normally late winter/early-to-mid spring. The biggest mistake most people make is thinking a sunny window in wintertime in the Northern US will work. It won't."

I was responding to this...my fruit this morning.

"Lemons here fruit year round."

They sure do and our lemons make me very happy! :-)

Getting bigger.