Meyer Lemon Marmalade 🍋

Jars of fresh marmalade on display — Meyer Lemon Marmalade

written and edited by Tammy 1st September 2024

You’ve heard me say it before and I’ll say it again, “when life gives you lemons…. “well have you ever tried Marmalade?

Citrus lovers will most likely have tried it and love it as I do but for those who don’t know, marmalade is the most divine, sweet, tangy preserve you could ever imagine spreading on a crunchy slice of hot toast or dolloped over icecream.

History of Marmalade

History of the Meyer Lemon

Size and Growing Preferences

Fruit Description

Where you'll find them

Meyer Marmalade Recipe

History of Marmalade

Marmalade recipes go back as far as the 1500s where the Portuguese used quinces (known as marmelo) to make their preserves, then as time passed Seville oranges took centre stage.

Now the relevance marmalade has to my gardening blog has everything to do with my Meyer Lemon tree-well actually I have two!

A beautiful specimen in my front garden and a dwarf Meyer branded “Lots a lemons” in a pot.

Ripe lemons hanging on a Meyer lemon tree — My Meyer lemon tree

Meyer is not the lemon you will find a wedge of wrapped in with your fish n chips but it is hands down the sweetest, juiciest lemon of them all, making it the most suitable variety for marmalade. (and I LOVE squeezing them over my fish n chips!)

History of the Meyer Lemon

A Hybrid, said to be a cross between a lemon and an orange that found its way to the US from Beijing China back in 1908 thanks to a US Dept of Agriculture plant explorer, Frank Meyer. (Improved Meyer lemon | Givaudan Citrus Variety Collection at UCR)

Size & Growing Preferences

A smaller more compact tree than other varieties, it potentially reaches 2.5m x 2.5m and thrives in full sun. Prefers a quality, free draining, loamy soil, slightly on the acidic side.

As with most varieties of citrus they are gross feeders. I regularly provide mine with a combination of fertilisers, liquids, organics, and animal manures in mulch form.

Known for being hardier and more adaptable that other varieties of lemon, it’s a popular, good choice for the home garden.

Fruit Description

The fruit itself is small to medium, rounded in size with a smooth orangey yellow thin skin covering a golden yellow juicy flesh.

Where you'll find them

The smooth thinner skin of the Meyer leaves them more susceptible to damage and bruising in transit hence they’ve never had the mass market appeal of say the Lisbon or Eureka, so you won’t find the Meyer on supermarket shelves.

Where you WILL find them though with the prolific volume of fruit they produce almost all year round, is at your local home growers markets, buy swap sell pages and home doorsteps with signs saying “Free lemons, take some”.

It honestly doesn’t get any better than that, the winner for me is the Meyer.

Attached is the link to the recipe I used.