The capabilities of a simple soil (Outdoor 2023 edition)

outside Dixie said:

Welcome to Alabama sounds like you are up north way. I have a Lemon tree 20 or more years old stopped putting out lemons past 4 yrs now had black ants in it took care of them but not a lemon since then tried everything. Do they just stop producing lemons puts out flowers but no lemons.You sound like the man that might can help tried all the regular stuff. Thanks Bama

Click to expand...

Hey man, not quite sure about citrus trees as I have no experience with them yet.

However, my first thought is that the plant is simply too old. The tree is 20 years old you said, but only in the past 4 years ants have "invaded" the plant, so to speak.

This tells me that the tree is in the process of dying and, along with it, the soil web within the rhizosphere of the lemon tree.

The reason I suggest this is because the microbes/soil web should be completely impregnable if it is in tiptop shape. In a healthy soil web, nothing bad should be able to get in. This is due to a combination of the terpenes said microbes/good bugs are exuding, good bugs fighting off ant/pest invasion, and so forth. But if the Lemon Tree and, by proxy, the roots of the tree are no longer healthy, then it can no longer sustain the soil web it once had. As a result, disease and pests can now take hold.

I looked on Google to find out how old Lemon trees can get before they stop producing fruit but couldn't find any answers. That said, the only thing I know that lasts longer than 20 years are Grape Vines. I've heard that some Citrus trees can last 10+ years, but other than that I have no idea.

In your shoes, I would be doing 2 things right now.

1) Start growing a new Lemon tree, better yet, get a little army of them going. Hopefully you've saved some of the seeds from the Lemons in the past? If not, you'll have to find yourself a new tree. Another option is to "graft" new shoots onto your current Lemon tree and see what happens. Unfortunately, I have no experience with that as of yet. I'm planning on experimenting with grafting in the future, but at this point in time I have no experience to be able to help you with.

2) Figure out if there are any issues with your soil. Does the Lemon Tree have sufficient enough compost applied every year? Is the compost quality enough? While there is a possibility there is an issue with the soil, I'm 90% sure that the issue is that your tree is just too old to produce any new buds. This is why it will produce flowers, but no actual Lemons. That leads me to believe that the issue is with the age of the tree, or pollination. But as I stated above, a pest invasion is a good indicator that the poor tree is just too old.

Look into getting a new tree, or grafting new shoots onto your current Lemon tree to take advantage of its root system. Sorry I couldn't help more, wishing you all the best!

Half of my Grape plants are starting to really kill it! The other half haven't done much of anything just yet. Had a feeling this would be the case; the larger sized grapes haven't done much, but the vines that produces smaller sized grapes are all the ones starting to grow the most. It is also worth noting that it is mostly the "Wine" grapes that are producing foliage, again, likely due to the smaller sized fruits.







Got some Raspberries and Boysenberries also producing foliage now as well.





If you look closely, there's a slight pinkish tint on some of the leaves of the Raspberry plant above, but the rest of the plant looks completely healthy. Likely some random micronutrient deficiency, molybdenum or boron or something. I'm not going to worry much about it, I'm going to stick to my strategy of doing nothing and letting the plants and microbes sort themselves out.

I am quite confident they'll turn right around in no time at all. I have my bag of TM-7 if I need it (still unopened), but I'm going to wait a few more weeks before I even think about using it, if I even need to at all.




All of the Strawberries are absolutely killing it. I will be plucking the flowers off until the beginning of June, but I left them on for the sake of taking pictures.



Some of the pepper transplants are doing pretty good too! My goal with the tomatoes and the peppers isn't so much to get a huge harvest this year, but to let the fruit from the plants fall to the ground and decompose this year. They will overwinter and should produce a myriad of "volunteer" plants for me to pick and choose from come next Spring. This is how I will "plant" peppers and tomatoes in the future.



My fig tree finally appears to be coming back to life! Took a little while, but I knew it would make it in time. Poor thing was just super stressed due to how much leaves were still on it, I knew I should have pruned it first thing when it showed up, but I didn't. Now I know better.



And this is just a random photo of what the entire yard looks like as a whole. I have cut/mowed nothing and have allowed everything to live normally and naturally. I fully attribute this to my success with all of the plants and trees I have planted so far this year. Eventually, the weeds/grass/etc will die back and decompose into the ground. Once that happens, all of my plants/trees that I put in the ground will explode in growth and production.

kratos015 said:

Hey man, not quite sure about citrus trees as I have no experience with them yet.

However, my first thought is that the plant is simply too old. The tree is 20 years old you said, but only in the past 4 years ants have "invaded" the plant, so to speak.

This tells me that the tree is in the process of dying and, along with it, the soil web within the rhizosphere of the lemon tree.

The reason I suggest this is because the microbes/soil web should be completely impregnable if it is in tiptop shape. In a healthy soil web, nothing bad should be able to get in. This is due to a combination of the terpenes said microbes/good bugs are exuding, good bugs fighting off ant/pest invasion, and so forth. But if the Lemon Tree and, by proxy, the roots of the tree are no longer healthy, then it can no longer sustain the soil web it once had. As a result, disease and pests can now take hold.

I looked on Google to find out how old Lemon trees can get before they stop producing fruit but couldn't find any answers. That said, the only thing I know that lasts longer than 20 years are Grape Vines. I've heard that some Citrus trees can last 10+ years, but other than that I have no idea.

In your shoes, I would be doing 2 things right now.

1) Start growing a new Lemon tree, better yet, get a little army of them going. Hopefully you've saved some of the seeds from the Lemons in the past? If not, you'll have to find yourself a new tree. Another option is to "graft" new shoots onto your current Lemon tree and see what happens. Unfortunately, I have no experience with that as of yet. I'm planning on experimenting with grafting in the future, but at this point in time I have no experience to be able to help you with.

2) Figure out if there are any issues with your soil. Does the Lemon Tree have sufficient enough compost applied every year? Is the compost quality enough? While there is a possibility there is an issue with the soil, I'm 90% sure that the issue is that your tree is just too old to produce any new buds. This is why it will produce flowers, but no actual Lemons. That leads me to believe that the issue is with the age of the tree, or pollination. But as I stated above, a pest invasion is a good indicator that the poor tree is just too old.

Look into getting a new tree, or grafting new shoots onto your current Lemon tree to take advantage of its root system. Sorry I couldn't help more, wishing you all the best!

Click to expand...

Yes im good with compost and i got plenty of cuttings from it .It takes up a lot of space.I was thinking of just putting it in the ground and see. If it makes it just use for cutting's Im like you think it is done putting out.Thank You DIxie