finger limes

I have just come across something called a finger lime with caviar fleash that tastes of lime in a little pickle sized fruit thingy, in one of the seed catalogues.  It says it is semi tropical and likes partial shade. good for the top of my field I thought, but wanted to check out if anyone knows anything about this fruit and whether partial shade means dappled or full sun all morning, full shade all afternoon.  Perhaps under one of aour apple trees in a sunnier spot?  We are a mutant 9a here.

Hello Mandy,

I have one, they're an Australian native and typically grow in a subtropical rainforest as an understory plant.

So, they like dappled sunlight and enough water to just keep them moist, good mulch.

Note: they have a LOT of sharp thorns. Keeping them out of the wind will prevent the fruit getting spiked.

Unlike normal citrus, they only need a bit of fertiliser, worm castings and fish/seaweed emulsion are very useful in this regard.

There are a variety of cultivars on different rootstock - some produce green, pink, champagne coloured pearls. The pearls explode a very refreshing citrus juice when crunched.

Hope this helps.

Excellent info. Thank you!

Hi,
i happened to recently see a video about it, here it is:


Apparently you need at least 300 days of sunshine.
This couple in France seem to have them in grennhouses only.

I got some "Astonville" selectivar finger lime seeds off the internet last summer, and tried to germinate some straight away.  Going into the cool weather I had two tiny seedlings, each in a four inch pot.  They of course went indoors for the winter (they are never likely to be winter hardy here) and had kind of a rough winter indoors. Spider mites, moisture control problems, variable warmth/light -- basically they spent all winter with one or two sickly leaves the size of my little fingernails, and didn't increase at all from the matchstick size they had at the start of the winter.  But they did not die!

It's time to plant things out here -- still maybe a bit cool for the tropicals, but in my judgment humidity, warm rainwater, and true sunshine are more important.  So I just got done transplanting them into a well-drained citrus soil mix in much taller 3QT nursery pots.  The amazing thing is that though they did not grow above ground, they apparently spent the winter making roots.  Each of them had a whole mass of bright yellow-green roots, all about six times longer than the plant is tall.  I'm sure they are still very fragile, but I was pleased to see all that root growth.  Normally a pathetic little seedling like these appeared to be has a rootlet ball the size of a peach pit and maybe one sad inch-long tap root.  

Given the low germination I got from the late-summer-planted seeds, I planted the rest this spring.  No germination so far and I don't really expect any.  But I live in hope.

I spoke too soon! I have two more new seedlings as of today.

Checked my order history, these seeds were ordered in March 2020 and kept by me just sitting around at room temperature. I normally expect dried citrus seeds to lose viability in weeks or months, but that’s what I get for internet “research” I guess.

These seeds came from eBay seller “summer-gardening” who appears no longer active.