Sicilian Lemons

 Whilst in the Florence fruit and vegetable market I could not help notice these wonderful Sicilian Lemons. 

 Really fresh and wonderfully fragrant I bought a few back home with me.  I am planning to use them to make something special to take advantage of the flavour. Perhaps a bottle of home made Limoncello liqueur, or a special baked lemon pudding.

 But I will also have a go at growing a few little plants from these pips.  But on doing a little research about the best way of germinating lemon pips I came across something amazing and interesting.  Lemon pips are not the same as lemon seeds.

So gently you start at the pointed end of the pip and peel back the outer layer of the pip to uncover the lemon seed.  Germination of these seeds will be much quicker and much more reliable as the outer covering would normally have to rot away and open up to help the seed germinate.  You can see these lemon seeds here.

 So I have potted some up in some seed compost in a heated propagator. Let's see what happens.