Lemon Large

NOT FOUND: lemon large.jpgWhile the lemon that grew on Judy of North Highlands tree won’t be breaking any world records, it is certainly the largest lemon we’ve ever seen. Weighing in at a whopping 4.5 pounds, the lemon broke from its over-burdened branch during the big wind storms at the end of November. It isn’t the only large lemon that Judy’s tree produced either. It’s just the biggest so far. These heavy weights grew side-by-side with regular-sized lemons. Judy told us that this is the first year that the tree has produced any real harvest at all, so that made this even more surprising. Judy’s large lemon is a little less than half the size of the largest lemon on record to date. That 11 pound 9.7 ounce lemon was discovered on a farm in Israel in 2003.

Judy has lived in her home in North Highlands since 1972 and her husband was stationed at McClellan Air Force base. She took cake decorating classes that were offered on the base in 1974. Upon completion of those classes, Judy was called upon often by private groups and people from the base to create cakes for special occasions. Sometimes, Judy would make 6-10 cakes per week! Cake making became her call and she worked for 3 years for Cake Castle Bakery in Carmichael. She also worked for three years for Kato’s Catering where she had the opportunity to work on several parties for the governor, other politicians and local TV personalities.

We asked Judy how many pies she could make from her 4.5 pound lemon. She laughed and said she wasn’t sure. She had another large lemon earlier in the season, and when she cut that one open it had a lot of rind. So chances are, you would need more than one to make a pie. She did say that the fruit on that one was very sweet as it had been “tree sweetened”, so much so that you could almost eat it like an orange.

Judy gave us some of her “regular” lemons that are pretty large themselves; and they are quite tasty. Thank you, Judy, for sharing your significantly large lemon with us. We’ll check back with Judy next fall to see if there’s an equally heavy harvest.