Through the winter, as my Meyer lemon tree has labored to produce plump little lemons, I've run my garden like a ruthless overlord, planning with anticipation how I'm going to devour all its little lemon babies (with chicken, in pies, over parsnips! in a martini!! ...all very tasty, more in another post). Having eaten the last of my Meyer lemons this week and because it warmed up a bit -- remember, I don't go out in the LA cold -- I took a closer look at my little Meyer lemon tree which has worked so hard to produce such delicious, sunshine-y fruit:
Yikes, oh my, what have I done to you my poor little tree? If I'm honest, I saw the earliest signs of this a few months ago already:
But I had assumed that my plant just needed some citrus food ("I'll feed you, if yooOU FEED ME!! GRAARRW!!") Wrong. So today, a couple google searches have taught me that those yellow leaves with green veins are typical for iron deficiency. Unfortunately, citrus plants become anemic pretty easily. Fortunately, it's an easy fix... Iron pellets are readily available in your neighborhood nursery, just dump them on the soil and water. Woohoo!
This also happened to my blueberry shrub last year, and look how nicely it healed up:
It's a little hard to see, but those veiny yellow leaves on the left, after a few months of watering over iron pellets have turned that beautiful blue-green color again. So as of today, iron applied, plant watered... Let's hope our little lemon tree forgives me.
