Winter 2025 | Edible Garden

Let the Sunshine In

This winter, grow your own indoor citrus grove.

A burst of fragrant blossoms and tangy juice in the middle of a Reno-Tahoe cold, snowy winter sounds like a Mediterranean fantasy. The dream can become a reality with a little investment and a love for the nuances of citrus care.

The process of growing citrus indoors dates back to the Renaissance period. Tall greenhouses called orangeries were built to overwinter large orange and lemon trees from places such as Italy and North Africa.

You don’t need a home orangery to grow citrus indoors, but if your home has a sunroom or even a few windows with sunny exposure, you may be able to have a lemon, lime, kumquat, or even grapefruit tree for all-year color and flavor.

Start with Good Light
Janice McKimmie keeps two Improved Meyer lemon (a hybrid variety) trees, two kumquat trees, and a lime tree at her house in Genoa — and she doesn’t have a sunroom. During the winter, the trees sit next to several southeastern-facing windows. McKimmie uses a few full-spectrum grow lights to compensate for shorter days and a space heater on especially cold nights.

“I’m a transplant here from San Jose, so I’m used to going out and grabbing a lemon or a lime whenever I need it, and I didn’t have that here,” McKimmie says. “I like to know where my food comes from.”

McKimmie’s trees are on a drip system to keep the soil lightly moist. She also found out that keeping the trees in their original nursery pots seems to retain the moisture while terracotta pots tend to draw water away from the trees. For fertilizer, she uses Espoma Organic Citrus-tone. If the leaves start getting a little yellow, she adds Pennington Ironite to the soil.

She moves the trees outside after the last spring frost and brings them back inside in September or October before the first frost.

“If it’s too cold for you to be outside without a sweater on then it’s too cold for your citrus plants,” McKimmie says.

Become the Bee
Keeping an eye on the citrus trees and moving them when necessary is only one part of the yearly process. When and if they blossom while indoors, Julie Ruf, co-owner of Greenhouse Garden Center in Carson City, says you also have to be the bee.

“When there are no bees, other insects, or wind that are pollinating, you need to use an eyeshadow brush or paintbrush to pick up pollen and transfer it from one flower to another,” Ruf says. “These citrus trees are self-pollinating, but they do need to transfer their pollen from one flower to another. Otherwise, you will have your blossoms fall off.”

Ruf had two Improved Meyer lemon trees for 20 years. She also likes the kaffir or Thai lime tree.

One insect that likes to go after citrus trees is scale. These tiny insects suck sap from citrus trees, causing them to drop their leaves and stunting the growth of the fruit. Ruf recommends using an organic insecticide such as Take Down Garden Spray by Monterey.

For soil, Ruf recommends Bumper Crop Organic Potting Soil, and for nutrition she recommends Down to Earth’s Citrus Mix organic fertilizer.

If you do decide to grow lemon trees, enjoy the blossoms but have patience while waiting for the fruits to appear.

“From the time you have flowers to the time it produces fruit is about nine to 10 months,” Ruf says.

Fruitful Investment
Citrus trees can even be part of your home décor if you have the space. Janee England has an Improved Meyer lemon tree and a grapefruit tree in a sunroom in her Washoe Valley home. Each tree is about five to six feet tall. The lemon tree produces about six to seven fruits per year and the grapefruit about three.

That might seem like a lot of work for a few fruits, but that doesn’t seem to bother England. She likes to freeze-dry the grapefruit peels and grind them into a powder for cooking all year. The lemons are a passion and also part of a honey-do list.

“I have had a fascination with lemons my whole life. We had one before; my father-in-law gave me a cutting. He lived in Las Vegas and had beautiful lemons, and I was a little jealous,” England says. “We took it outside for the summer, and it froze and died before we could bring it in. So my husband built the sunroom and bought me a new lemon tree. So now we have a lemon tree that cost us thousands of dollars because we had to build a sunroom around it.”

RESOURCES

You can purchase citrus trees at one of these area locations:

Greenhouse Garden Center (Carson City)
Greenhousegardencenter.com

Rail City Garden Center (Sparks)
Railcitygardencenter.com

Villager Nursery (Truckee)
Villagernursery.com

Or purchase online and ship from Four Winds Growers in Watsonville, Calif., at Fourwindsgrowers.com.