I'm not feeling sour any longer!

Why did I feel sour???

I think I had a good reason! Our lemon tree has been over productive with big fruits plump and juicy since we got here in March. 

Our lemon tree

Plump and juicy lemons

But towards the end of  August, one cockatoo  decided it was his supermarket and descended on it every now and again, destroying up to 35 lemons in one go.

We would wake up in the morning and find all those lemons, even green ones, half eaten covering the ground.

The culprit!

How he "opens"the fruit

34 lemons down!

Now I hate waste… So I cleaned them, cut the damaged part, juice and freeze it for later use.

But last week he decided to visit the garden every day, and I've tallied  up to 203 lemons down!

So I had to come up with ideas on how to use these lemons. 

I started with 3 huge jars of lemon achards, lemon confit (both of these with olive oil, chilli, herbs and spices)and  preserved lemons.

All the goodies: achards, confit, preserved...

 Lemon butter, lemon and melon jam, came second.

Then freezing:  I sliced lemons, peeled lemons, zested lemons….

I was still left with a lot of lemons, so I  came up with a mixture of minced lemons/sugar/onion/dill/olive oil put through the food processor (like a pesto) and this is delicious on fish or grilled meat. (Our dill is oversized and almost reaching the veranda's ceiling , so plenty of it went in that concoction).

Sliced lemons ready for freezing

Our dill and coriander

I had to freeze some in plastic bags as it made such a big batch. I might add some chilli and macadamia nuts to some of it. I'm sure it would taste nice ! Anything with chilli tastes nice! As for macadamia nuts we get heaps of it from our tree.

Macadamia nut tree flowering

Recent harvest

I also mixed some juice with sugar and froze it. The mixture doesn't freeze solid and we can scoop a teaspoon of it and mix it with water and presto! Fresh lemonade!

No wonder I felt sour! Over four days, all I was doing was working with lemons! My skin smelt like lemon, my mouth tasted lemon. However, it was all worth it.

But, I was running out of ideas and our freezer is running out of space. So I decided this had to stop.

First we put a casting net over the tree, but it wasn't big enough to cover all of it. I tied plastic bags all around it, but the cockatoo was still making a dive for it.

Then I found some old transparent curtains that were left by the previous owners and we pegged these all over the tree. YES! this seems to work!. The bird flies over it but cannot land anywhere and pick at the fruits.

One way to protect the tree!

Now who's feeling sour??? Not me any longer!

Let's hope this is the end of all the devastation! (Until the orange, mandarin and cumquat trees start fruiting…)