Just a yellow lemon tree

When a good friend of ours was surprised with a half wine barrel from her fiance for Christmas instead of the puppy she was desperately hoping he had hidden around the side of their house... they asked for our advice on how to plant a lemon tree in it. Instead of giving advice, we armed ourselves with a drill, tools and hydrated coir peat and set about helping them achieve their lemon-tree dream. (This was in exchange for a dinner of freshly made pasta with sauce made by their wonderful neighbour. A side note here - I hope I am convincing you of the merits of having a great relationship with your neighbours already?!)

 

Anyway, this was the final result:

 

 

How did we get there? Here's a brief run down of how to plant a fruit tree in a barrel. Firstly, drill a number of holes in the bottom (A friend of mine was once surprised that her wine barrel of strawberries filled up like a pond after it rained once and didn't drain, even though it's made of wood. These barrels hold wine, so it stands to reason they will hold water. That's just what they do.)

 

We like to bolt in caster wheels to our wine barrels so they can easily be moved around, to get sunshine or so you can sweep underneath them etc. So we put three evenly-spaced heavy duty (60kg+) rotating caster wheels on the bottom.

 

Next, so the pot drains well and the base doesn't rot out, put a 10-15cm layer of coarse gravel or blue metal in the bottom. Then fill with the best quality potting mix you can find (look for the ticks on the bag) and mix in some hydrated coir peat. You can buy this in blocks, put it in a bucket and fill it with water and it puffs up like a sponge. I like to add some seaweed solution to the bucket as well.

 

Then, plant your lemon (or other) tree, water it in with some diluted seaweed solution, then put a good layer of mulch on top of the pot to reduce evaporation (I like to use coarse pine bark, because it holds its colour nicely)

 

And there you have it! Above is a dwarf lemon sold under the name Lots'a'lemons. Mine is growing well in its pot and has a constant flush of almost mature fruit, baby lemons and flowers, so it almost fruits all year round.

 

It isn't a puppy, but I'm sure they'll get a fair amount of enjoyment from this tree for many years. Now we're hoping for an invite back when the lemons are mature for a tasty margarita and we can enjoy it too!