In keeping with my picking up hip pandemic hobbies well after their hipness has expired, I turned this bounty into marmalade in November and December. Not that insipidly sweet stuff with minimal flavor that glazes green beans and gets smeared across biscuits in households other than mine. This is marvelous stuff—tangy-sweet with just a hint of bitter, LEMON in all caps.

That unassuming shrub in a pot grew enough fruit to make thirty half-pint jars of marmalade, with a few extra for a lemon custard pie at Thanksgiving. Christmas 2020 was all about the marmalade; I gave jars to family, friends, teachers, my yard guy, the letter carrier, my hair babe… I hope I made a few marmalade converts among them. I used this small-batch recipe with a couple minor adjustments I cribbed from other ones.

This month I made a test batch using store-bought fruit, and it just wasn’t the same. Scrubbing the food wax off the lemons was pain, even with all the tips and tricks from the internet. Too hard and you damage the rind, which defeats the whole point, because that’s where marmalade gets most of its flavor. Not hard enough and the wax is still there, hazing the rind and adding who knows what iffy flavor. Also, Meyer lemons are expensive. Nope, not worth it without a better source of fruit.

I inherited another potted citrus bush/tree a few years ago. I have no idea what it is, but it produces small, juicy, very thin-skinned, very sour fruit full of seeds. Satsuma? Whatever it is, it’s an old survivor. If the story that came with it is true, it’s at least 50 years old. Is that even possible? Anyway, this year its fruit are ripening in dribs and drabs, and the first picking went into the marmalade pot. I used the same basic recipe, but the rinds cook to tender much faster than the Meyer lemons do, maybe in half the time. 340 grams of fruit made two half-pint jars, plus a little extra for the fridge. Like its lemon cousin, this orange marmalade packs a flavor wallop. More (very) small batches to come as the fruit ripens.

(Yes, I need to re-caulk the counter/backsplash joint. I’ll get to it, eventually.)

Growing citrus in USDA Growing Zone 7 is a silly exercise, really. In the winter I leave them outside as long as the temps don’t go below 27F/-3C, but when the temperature roller coaster starts, I’m hauling them into the sunporch and back out again because they are much happier outside than in. So, after this winter’s marmalade successes, I ordered a second Meyer lemon, of course. I have a hand truck.

(More marmalade on the way!)