Limes Should Be Yellow Not Green

[Nyboy]

I am going on my 3rd winter with a grafted Bearss lime tree. Each winter tree produces about 3 limes, I was never sure when they where ripe. Did not really matter they always ended up in a cocktail. This year I never picked them and was surprised when they started turning yellow. I assumed what I really had was a mislabeled lemon tree. According to wikipedia Bearss lime is the one most for sale, it is a hybrid sold green but turns yellow when ripe. Who Knew green limes are not ripe

 

[Ridgerunner]

I had a lime tree when I was living outside of New Orleans. It was in a container tree but after a few years I planted it outside when it got too big. It froze one winter and came back from the roots, a totally different lime. I liked the rootstock limes better. They ware larger, juicier, more prolific, and thin-skinned.

Some years the tree would freeze back to the roots and resprout, but some times it would live a few years between freezes and be covered with a lot of big juicy limes which we used mainly for cooking. If you left them on the tree long enough, they would turn yellow.

 

[digitS']

"The majority of cultivated species are in reality hybrids, produced from the citron (Citrus medica), the mandarin (Citrus reticulata) and the pomelo (Citrus grandis)."

You can click those link If'n you need to. It seems that limes are really whatever we want to say they are .

Maybe, we can say that they are not lemons but lime juice is an easy and good substitute for lemon. And, they keep well in the fridge - we need a subtropical gardener to set us straight on "good limes / bad limes" the way they can on pineapples.

Steve
Oh! There is @Ridgerunner . How about limes and lemons in Africa, Ridge?

 

[Nyboy]

Hoping 1 day to turn greenhouse https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orangery

 

[Ridgerunner]

Don't remember seeing any Steve. Plenty of mangoes, bananas, and pineapples though. You just can't beat a fresh really ripe pineapple, much better than what we see in the store.

 

[Nyboy]

Bananas are the same, the ones I had in Brazil where sweet as candy.

 

[digitS']

Those British estate greenhouses from earlier centuries were briefly an inspiration for my sunshed, NyBoy.

I did the concrete block foundation, my first experience with "masonry." Then, was in too much of a hurry so put up a wood frame north wall. Instead, I might have had what pretty much amounted to a masonry heater that was commonly used on those British buildings.

I used the bricks available to me to build corner posts for my front-yard, picket fence. I would have needed many more for the north wall and then, fireplace bricks for the convoluted chimneys that those greenhouse heaters had. Of course, I would have needed greater skills as a mason.

Steve

 

[Nyboy]

Steve any photos

 

[Pulsegleaner]

Yesterday I bought a fairly decent number of limes and looking at them, I can see how they might be an extreme amalgam of species. There's at least one that, if it wasn't for the green color, would look exactly like a lemon (and a somewhat skinny rather citron-y lemon at that) there's one that's more or less spherical (so more like an orange than a lemon) and most have the smooth glossy light green skins I associate with good juicy limes.

Maybe, we can say that they are not lemons but lime juice is an easy and good substitute for lemon. And, they keep well in the fridge - we need a subtropical gardener to set us straight on "good limes / bad limes" the way they can on pineapples.

Oh! There is @Ridgerunner . How about limes and lemons in Africa, Ridge?

I'm just going on what I have heard, but a lot of people swear by the older Creole Lime above the modern Tahitian and Bearass for flavor. Florida used to have a LOT of them until most were destroyed by a hurricane in. Those are actually more closely related to the key/Mexican lime (different species) but I think they are larger. There are probably relict trees somewhere in Florida, so maybe a specialty search will be useful.

You also may bump into the Makrut a.k.a. "Kaffir" lime, but do NOT use that as a substitute. The peel and leaves may be essential to Thai cooking but the juice tends to taste like someone took a whole lime (peel and all) put it in a blender and then strained the liquid out.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Bananas are the same, the ones I had in Brazil where sweet as candy.

How ripe were the bananas. Most places I've been they are to be eaten when the skin is black, not still under-ripe like they sell them here.