Oscar’s Lime Tree

When Oscar came home from hospital, we planted a lime tree for him in the backyard. It was an optimistic project, given our complete lack of competence to grow anything. As such, we cheated a little bit – instead of starting with a seed, we started with a small, established plant. Also working against us is the fact that the soil in our backyard isn’t great – actually, it’s mostly clay – so we used some gypsum to help break it up, and we’ve mixed in loads of compost to try and enrich it a bit, and to keep in the moisture.

So far, it’s going ok – the tree is still alive, though its lost all of its leaves now that winter is approaching. It also managed to get a disease of some sort, which we’re treating with white oil.

But, with everything working against it, our little tree has still managed to produce one small lime! We’re hoping it’s not a case of “the first and the last”, but just in case it is, at least we’ve got evidence that we had a very minor amount of success!