National Lemon Month – June 1, 2026

History of National Lemon Month

The history of lemons is rather interesting as no one knows for sure where the berry came from, although many historians and scientists suggest north-western India, where they have been cultivated for more than 2,500 years. Arab traders brought the lemons to the Middle East and Africa sometime after 100 A.D. They were introduced into southern Italy around 200 A.D., and later, cultivated in Egypt. After 1150, the crusaders returning from Palestine brought them to the rest of Europe.

However, lemons were not cultivated as food all that time. They were purely ornamental until around the 10th century. The full culinary use of lemon came into effect in Europe in the 1400s. Lemons arrived in the New World in 1493, when Christopher Colombus brought lemon seeds to Hispaniola. The Spanish conquest spread them throughout the New World for ornamental, culinary, and medicinal use.

Lemons were grown in pre-modern California by 1751 and in Florida in the 1800s, for cooking and more sophisticated flavoring. In the U.S., different varieties of lemon are used for diverse purposes including the production of lemon oil, juice, and food. Lemons are also crucial in protecting us from scurvy, a disease caused by a lack of vitamin C in the body. In fact, during the California Gold Rush when the miners’ diets were poor, food was scarce, and scurvy was on the rise, more lemon trees were planted in California to prevent the disease. Lemon Month celebrates the lemon harvest period in the U.S.