An Etrog Tree Grows in West Virginia…

This is a story about growing etrogs in West Virginia…

First, a bit about etrogs! An etrog (or esrog) is a special kind of citron that is used in celebrating the Jewish holiday of Sukkot, in the fall. Sukkot is one of the Jewish “High Holidays”; it comes after Rosh Hashonna (Jewish New Year) and Yom Kippur (The Day of Atonement); Christians may know of Sukkot as “The Feast of Tabernacles”. For the 7 days of Sukkot, you spend as much time as possible, and eat your meals, in a Sukkah, an outdoor booth that has a roof of leaves, (commemorating G‑d’s sheltering our ancestors as they traveled from Egypt to Israel), and you make the daily prayers with a Lulav and an Etrog- “The Four Kinds”- which expresses our unity, and our belief in G‑d’s omnipresence. The Four Kinds are: a palm branch (lulav), two willows (aravot), a minimum of three myrtles (hadassim), and one citron- the Etrog. Sukkot is a time of joy and happiness, and it’s a lot of fun to decorate, and then eat your meals in a Sukkah! For more information on Sukkot, Sukkahs, Lulavs, and Etrogs, go to: https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/4126/jewish/Sukkot.htm

When Dan and I were in Israel in 2011, we were gifted a special etrog from the Jerusalem garden of a Moroccan Jewish woman with whom we took a cooking class, and when we got home, I planted the seeds from it and grew a lot of little etrog trees! Unfortunately they all died when our little greenhouse failed, and that is when The Great Etrog Tree Hunt started… and I learned that it was Absolutely Impossible to get an etrog plant in the USA! In order for an etrog to be Kosher for Sukkot, the tree must have been grown from seed (not grafts or cuttings), and I tried planting the seeds from the Israeli etrogs I ordered every year for Sukkot, but they never germinated. After an incredible amount of research and emailing, I finally got in touch with a journalist who had a connection to an agricultural exchange program between the USA and the Jewish Community of Morocco, and we were able to buy 4 small, and very special, etrog trees! As we live in the southern West Virginia mountains, where it can get down to -20 in the winter, we planted the trees in pots, so we could bring them inside in the winter. The pots grew larger and larger as the years went by, and now they are in great big pots on wheels! When they first started flowering, about 5 years ago or so, in the winter when the trees were inside, I was ALL excited, as I thought we might actually, finally, have etrogs- but the flowers always fell off, even when I tried to pollinate them myself, using a little brush. Year after year we suffered the disappointment of watching the trees burst into bloom in the fall or winter, followed by all the flowers falling off without turning into etrogs… And then last year I had the brilliant idea of fertilizing the trees in the early spring- in March- with a fertilizer made specifically for citrus trees, and after we wheeled the giant pots outside in May, the trees flowered- and the bees came a-calling! I took tons of photos of Very Happy Bees pollinating etrog flowers:

And sure enough, we got 3 little etrogs!

In October, before the first frost, we wheeled the trees inside again, Very Carefully, to avoid harming the etrogs, and placed them in their “winter home” by the window, with Gro-Lights trained on them. The trees are never particularly happy to be inside in the winter, and they always shed a lot of leaves, but I tend to them like a mommy caring for her babies, watering them, and removing the webs that constantly form on the new growth… and we recently discovered another etrog! So we now have FOUR etrogs, and one is starting to turn yellow! YAY!

When I recently posted about all this on Facebook, I found there was tremendous interest from people across the nation wanting etrog trees- because they are, truly, impossible to find in the USA! So then I started a Gardening Experiment: I soaked the 60 seeds from this Sukkot’s mail-order Israeli etrog in water for a few days to soften them, and then planted them in Jiffy Pots in a mini greenhouse tray, and set it on a heat mat under Gro-Lights… and they just started sprouting!

Now the silly trees are doing again what they do every winter: flowering when there are no bees around! I am going to stand on a chair and try to pollinate them again with a little brush… but I am also going to fertilize the trees shortly, in the hope that they will flower again outside in the spring when the bees can get to them!

Now my job is not only to keep our Moroccan-Jewish Etrog Trees alive until they can go outside again in May, and make sure our four etrogs hang in there and ripen, but to also nurture our little etrog seedlings into viable plants that can travel, so I can (hopefully) send them to at least some of the people I’ve met on Facebook who are Crazy to have their very own etrog tree!

Have you ever grown an etrog tree- or any tree- from seed and have it bear fruit?

Please tell me about it in the comments!