quixotic indoor fruit tree

It looks like I will be so fortunate as to be moving into an office with a window in the coming fall semester. (For those of us in underfunding higher education, this is a Very Big Deal.) So, naturally, I want to grow some food in it, and I'm especially interested in a potted fruit tree if I can find one that has a chance given the conditions. I want a chance of success, but I am okay to try something knowing it may well fail.

Here's what I am working with:

- One tall but narrow bank of windows
- North facing; I can provide supplemental light
- Warm, relatively humid conditions (they heat this building like you wouldn't believe)
- I am in the office from August through May; during the summer any plants will come home with me and live outdoors

I would rather like to try some citrus because I don't have indoor space for it at home (we're zone 6b so outdoor citrus is mostly a no go), and it would bear while I'm actually in the office. But that may be unrealistic given the conditions. Any citrus that does better than others in a lower-light situation?

I may just start off with some herbs, but it would be fun to do something that would a little more exciting and that I'm not already doing at home. Any ideas welcome.

Herbs would be good to start with.

I have seen a lot of ficus trees in homes and rubber plants were at one time very fashionable.

Do you plan to hand pollinate the fruit trees and buy self pollinating ones?

it’s not quite the same, but you could probably grow some coffee in such a situation easier than citrus.

I’d probably go for something self-pollinating ideally, but open to fiddly hand pollination too.

Coffee is one I had considered too. I’m a home coffee roaster and so it certainly has an appeal.

Although, given how frequently our building seems to get bees in it, it’s possible I might have pollination available for me naturally...

so many fruits really want more light. as long as we’re mining the not-necessarily-thought-of-as-fruit, how about cacao or vanilla?

katuk might be an option, too, though it’s a leaf crop, not fruit.

Lemmon tree may be a  good choice for what you described. Fruits and blooms in the winter but uses the summer sun to grow the fruit. You could get it established now in a container on casters so that it is easy to move. That worked well for my mother.  Be sure to eliminate all aphids before bringing it in; they multiply whiteout any predators. The fragrence will make the teachers with less seniority even more jealous.

A guy I used to work with (and still one of my best friends even though we both left that place) kept lots of subtropicals in our office. The babaco did the best in terms of fruit production.

What's your ceiling height? Cheeseplant ((Monstera deliciosa) is a popular houseplant in the UK and has edible fruit...it's a rainforest plant, so won't mind low light levels. If it weren't for that I would suggest cacti...

Interesting, I did not know Monstera made edible fruit...ceiling height is probably 10’, so that may be an option.

monstera is good with low light. And hardy is an understatement. The fruit is edible more as a curiosity rather than anything else, but I have eaten my share of them!

vanilla, from what I understand, is very finicky about humidity and temperature- which i guess could be very good if they happen to be the conditions the plant likes.

If you want to try citrus, I would say kumquats, which do pretty well in pots as long as you keep an eye on parasites and fertilize regularly.

When you described your office and I remembered the cinder block caves my professors had in college, I had this television scene pop into my head from the first episode of "Green Acres"
https://youtube.com/clip/Ugkx1GWdFMCVqtd5inAnVwcPluE01oi-kIus
It made me chuckle 🤭
(If you don't want to watch the link, the main character is reading agricultural bulletins during his lunch break and growing mushrooms in his desk drawer in his office. Hey, you could grow a little block/bag of mushrooms in your office.

Jenny Wright wrote:When you described your office and I remembered the cinder block caves my professors had in college, I had this television scene pop into my head from the first episode of "Green Acres"
https://youtube.com/clip/Ugkx1GWdFMCVqtd5inAnVwcPluE01oi-kIus
It made me chuckle 🤭
(If you don't want to watch the link, the main character is reading agricultural bulletins during his lunch break and growing mushrooms in his desk drawer in his office. Hey, you could grow a little block/bag of mushrooms in your office.

Couldn't be me, hahaha

I should have thought of mushrooms before now! I could have already been doing that in the windowless office I have now.

Fortunately I already have my "Green Acres" and no need to throw it all away and move to live out my rural fantasies...not that I don't think about it when I have as many papers to grade as I do now.