I have an indoor lemon plant. Bought last winter and looked quite nice dropped all of its leaves by spring. I put it outside when the risk of frost was over, repotted with some decent soil and it recovered. Many blossoms but alas only one survived. I bought it back in this fall and the lemon has continued to ripen, but it’s huge! It’s only a pale yellow and is the size of a pomegranate. Is it really a lemon and should I wait until it’s a deeper yellow?
The smallest lemon I have seen is about an inch in diameter and the largest I have seen is about 3 inches. And the colour ranges from green to yellow to orangish, including striped varieties. We even have the buddha's hand which literally looks like a hand with dozens of fingers.
More importantly, they cross-pollinate very easily. So if the bees visit an orange tree before visiting your lemon, the fruit is going to be a cross. We plant the different citrus species in bunches with other shrubs in between to reduce the possibility of this happening. So, if it does not quite taste like a lemon, you know why.
All true lemons are variants of the species Citrus limon (citrus x limon). This species contains dozens of established varieties, and it likely contains hundreds of wild hybrids.
Lemons can reach considerable sizes, so I would say that yes, that is a lemon. Did you try opening and tasting it? That should clear all your doubts.
