Why You Need a Lemon Tree in Your Life.

Lemonade and beyond: the magic awaits you.

I recently moved into what I hope is my forever home, a pastel-colored villa with a large, screened lanai and small outdoor patio sandwiched between the screen room and a dividing wall that serves as a patio bundling board between our roof mates and us.

In the corner of the screen room, facing due Southwest with upstretched arms sits my first-ever lemon tree. She was a generous housewarming gift from my sister, whose citrus trees I’ve long envied from afar.

Of course, I named her Lulu. Lulu Lemon. She is already bearing fruit, tiny clusters of hard, small green bulbs that I will monitor like a pregnant mother hovering over her ultrasound image, the butterflies of life dancing in her belly.

Did You Know that Lemon Trees Have Thorns?

Like roses, lemon trees bear thorns, but more formidable spires they are, guarding their fruit like knaves at the palace. These long spikes could surely do the job of piercing an ear or any of the many fleshy body parts that people seem to find suitable for poking holes into these days. If you need to add a belly button ring, let’s make a deal!

My mom and sister urged me to nip these potential pain-inducing hazards with pruning shears; my sister validated that the Internet said it was safe to do so. However, Peter, my resident gardener, and maker of the daily breakfast home fries, resisted the idea of such a swift amputation.

What can I say? I did not want to risk my daily breakfast rations; I agreed that we should let Lulu get adjusted before the manicure.

Symbolism and Lemon Trees

Many myths precede the lemon tree, adding to its perfumy allure. Some say it’s a symbol of fertility. Others, abundance. Yet others point to its longevity — lemon trees can live for 100 years or more — and say it provides protection, healing, and good health.

In fact, lemon trees were the designer gowns of their day, a symbol of status and wealth for Romans, Egyptians, and the Chinese. It’s no wonder that lemons were a mainstay of still-life paintings, providing that Influencer stamp of “trending now” in their day.

I’ve had the pleasure of knowing and using Feng Shui practitioners to help me understand and align the energy in my home. Numerically, my birthdate aligns with wealth and prosperity facing the Southwest. So, it’s a happy accident that my tree is anchored correctly to welcome abundance into my home.

Olfactory Magic

Meanwhile, Lulu emits her “eau-de-natural” scent, a welcome alternative to fake-out chemicals that commercials attempted (and successfully) brainwashed me into believing meant clean. Lemony-fresh! Know that the real thing triggers the olfactory system yet is deliciously chem-free.

Bonus: Mosquitos and gnats are repelled by Lulu Lemon. You can even load up a squirt bottle and spritz lemon juice around your patio and house to repel roaches (which, if they are Zeppelin size, here in South Carolina’s Low Country, we call them Palmetto Bugs), spiders, and flies. What’s not to love about a lemony spritz that keeps the critters at bay?

So Now Let’s Talk Lemonade. And Today’s Recipe: Aunt Jane’s Ginger Snaps

While you will welcome having fresh lemons just hanging around the house for marinades and salad dressings, shrimp scampi, and Greek potatoes, they may also rekindle your need for lemonade.

Maybe that’s a need you’ve left unfulfilled lately. I’m going to give a reason to go there: my Aunt Jane’s Ginger Snaps.

Aunt Jane’s Ginger Snaps

Ingredients

1 C packed brown sugar

2 sticks butter, softened

1/4 C molasses

1 egg

2 1/4 C flour, tamped, so it’s a little extra

1 tsp ground sugar

1 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp cloves

1/4 tsp salt

2 tsp baking soda

Directions

Heat oven to 350. Mix sugar, butter, molasses, and egg. Stir in flour and spices, baking soda, and salt. Roll into round balls and coat in sugar. Bake for 8–10 minutes.

My Aunt Jane made ginger snaps unlike store-bought; they were crinkled and puffy instead of flat and snappy. She gave them to us in a large coffee tin, which my mom most often slid into the deep freezer for safekeeping. Well, make that semi-safe.

When the parents were distracted, my sister and I would extract one of the frozen sugar-sprinkled gems from the can, then dip it into hot tea. The outsides would melt away in our mouths, but not before we could inhale some of the sweet tea they had sopped up. The center of the cookie, if dipped quickly enough, would be still frozen, providing a satisfying chomp.

Country Time Lemonade

I confess that my mom never made from-scratch lemonade. Growing up, we had a canister of Country Time powdered lemonade in the kitchen cabinets.

We’d mix up a tall glass of Country Time, then sit outside at the vinyl-wrapped picnic table. Using the same dunking technique that we’d perfected with morning tea, my sister and I would submerge the spicy bombs deep into the lemonade. We didn’t mind if our fingers went in to retrieve the melting cookie from its chilly dip.

The tart lemon flavor was the twangy yang to the sweetened cookies softening yin, a marriage that we didn’t question. With lemonade, there was a longer grace period to retrieve your sunken treasure than with hot tea. This I had learned through experience as a tea dipper and enduring the misfortune of scooping mushy piles of cookies with a spoon after consuming the contents of the vessel.

Ginger snaps and lemonade were an innocuous way to introduce children to the flavor lemon, which otherwise, like the less coordinated soul in gym class, would be the only kid left standing after all other flavors had been consumed.

Once, I mistakenly thought I was grabbing a banana popsicle, only to be foiled as it turned out to be a lemon. None of the other kids at the pool would trade me, of course.

Lemon Plays Nice with Others…in Moderation.

Lemon is a flavor that should never go out without a wingman tailing. It needs an accomplice, like ginger, honey, or tea, lest it sinks too deeply into its sourpuss shadow side.

You can overdo lemon, too. For example, a small amount of lemon-infused olive oil can be delightful on roasted broccoli or veggie pasta, especially if it’s balanced with garlic, parmesan, and red pepper. But with too heavy a hand, the lemon flavor can overwhelm.

Let Your Lemon Shine

Lemon is at its best in seafood and salads and in mixed drinks; it brightens natural flavors, its acidic nature cutting through fats and rich sauces and soups. Lemon improves the color of some foods and is also a go-to for delaying oxidation on other fruits like avocados, bananas, apples, and grapes. I’d go so far as to say that lemon shines by inspiring the greatness within others…but that might be just a tad much?

Yeah, thought so.

Peter and I home-brew Kombucha, so we’re always experimenting with combining lemon with other flavors to create fun and healthy beverages. Although our still-green babes on our first tree have a long way to grow, we are excited about being able to harvest lemons from our patio and find more ways to incorporate fresh lemons into our menus.