Two questions regarding my Meyer Lemon tree

[skippitydodah]

Hello everyone from Illinois. It's midwinter here. We just got about 12" of snow last night into today. I hope you all are staying warm. 

My Meyer lemon tree is doing well. I've been alternating it between a south window and using a grow light. I also have a heating pad wrapped around half the pot to keep the roots warm. My question is fertilizer. I have been watering the tree once every two weeks and I use a very small amount of Jacks Citrus Feed on it. Actually 1/2 of a quarter teaspoon, so it is a very small amount. The tree has about a dozen buds right now. Should I keep doing what I'm doing or should I increase the fertilizer?

My second question is regarding mulch. Back in the summer I picked up some nice organic pine bark mulch. I did not use it on the Meyer Lemon but I did use some on my blueberry bush. The problem is after putting mulch on the blueberry bush I wound up with an infestation of fungus gnats. It might be coincidence, but before I used the mulch I had no insect problems. I would like to grind up some of the pine bark mulch and mix it into the soil of the Meyer Lemon but I'm concerned about introducing bugs.

How can I go about doing that without worrying about introducing bugs into my Lemon tree soil? Is it possible to boil the mulch first without destroying it? Any suggestions are greatly appreciated.

[brian]

Did it flush new leaves recently?  If so maybe give it a bit more fertilizer.  You're probably overthinking it and micromanaging, though.

Normally I wouldn't even fertilizing an indoor container tree in a northern latitude (like ours) but if you are heating the root and giving supplemental light it might be actively growing.   

As long as the soil is warm and free draining that is the most important thing.

I assume your blueberry bush is indoors in a container??   I've never seen fungus gnats outside... in winter.  Yeah I wouldn't move soil from it to the meyer just to be safe.

[skippitydodah]

Thanks for the response Brian. No the lemon has not put out new leaves. I'm going to take your advice and leave well enough alone. If it ain't broke don't fix it.

The blueberry bush is potted but it is still outdoors, albeit in a garage. The fungus gnat issue was with the blueberry bush back in the summer/fall. I don't want to move soil from it to the lemon. I was wondering about mulch. I used pine bark mulch on the blueberry back in the summer/fall and wound up with the gnats. I suspect they came from the mulch. That's why I am concerned about mixing some of the pine bark mulch into the lemon soil. I don't want to introduce a bug problem to the lemon tree.

[Millet]

A good methold to rid containers of +




























A good method to rid a container of fungus gnats is to brake up a couple  doughnut dunks for mosquito control and spread it over the container's surface.  Every time you water you kill fungus gnats.

 

[skippitydodah]

Thanks Millet. I am familiar with the "mosquito bits." That is what I used on my blueberry bush. Thank you for the reply. I'm still wondering if there would be any benefit to shredding up some pine bark mulch and adding that to my Lemon tree soil. A lot of good organic material there as it breaks down in the soil. I will figure something out. 

[Millet]

Many people use pine bark as a MAJOR portion of their growing medium.  Example:  The 5-1-1 growing medium is made up of 5 parts pine bark, 1 part peat moss and 1 part perlite.