While it is not quite lemon season in Tucson, it is Meyer lemon season. And that works just fine for me.

The Meyer lemon (Citrus × meyeri) is a citrus fruit native to China, thought to be a cross between a lemon and an orange. It was introduced to the United States in 1908 by the agricultural explorer Frank Nicholas Meyer, an employee of the United States Department of Agriculture, who collected a sample of the plant on a trip to China. Sadly, this original Meyer lemon carried a disease that killed other citrus trees; it was banned from sale and all known trees were destroyed. Happily, in the 1950s, the University of California department of agriculture released the “Improved Meyer Lemon” which does not carry the blight and is widely available for purchase.

Now living in a place where citrus grows easily, I am fascinated by the variety of fruit available, other than the usual lime, lemon, orange and grapefruit. Sure, we know now about tangelos and clementines. But what do you hear of limequats? Calamondin oranges? Cocktail trees?

When we first bought our home in the foothills of Tucson’s Santa Catalina Mountains, we were thrilled to know that we had an orange tree out front but were sad that it bore no fruit. Inside the garden walls, there were the remnants of an above-mentioned “cocktail tree” – a tree that would, in theory, bear oranges, lemons and limes on its branches. It had been cut back so severely that it barely had the energy to eke out one sprig of green leaves. We soon took it out of its misery and started watering the orange tree out front.

As with many things in the desert, water made all the difference and by the next winter we were enjoying some of the best oranges either of us has ever eaten. When it came time to reconfigure the front courtyard, we wanted to add another citrus tree. But what variety? We thought about a blood orange, a clementine, a Meyer lemon or a ruby grapefruit. But, in the end, we decided that the good old Lisbon lemon would be the fruit we would use the most. It’s funny that, in making this decision, we never considered what fruits our neighbors grew. Nor did we know that, when their fruit trees bore heavily, bags of citrus would appear at our door.

So far this year, Connie and Steve across the street have given us some of the best limes we have ever tasted, making some of the best margaritas we have ever sipped! (All from a little Bearss lime tree they bought on a whim at Costco…) And then, right at the New Year, Judy and Jeff had an overabundance of Meyer lemons. We got a bagful … and then another bagful. So we roasted chickens, made cakes, custards and sauces with them. And the pile never seemed to diminish! So, one day, I figured that they would make terrific marmalade and made my first batch. Delicious.

If you haven’t tried canning, you should not be afraid. It took me forever to get over the fears of botulism or whatever it was that kept my mother from making preserves and pickles. The key is making sure all your implements – jars, lids, ladles and so on – are sterile. The rest is easy. Ball – the company that manufactures the jars that I use – has a website with easy to follow instructions.

My next project? The Honors College, where I work, has a plethora of sour orange trees loaded with fruit. Orange marmalade anyone?

– David