23/10/2026
Our first lemon 🍋 and it's backstory 📖
When we bought our rundown dilapidated farm four years ago, we didn't actually have a clear plan as to what we were going to do with it. Family thought we'd gone nuts, "midlife crisis" was mentioned and even the previous owners were a bit skeptical 🧐.
I do remember having one conversation with people about wanting a citrus grove in the greenhouse - oranges, lemons, limes. These plants are fine most of the year in our climate, as it's not the cold that kills them off, but the damp. The idea was I'd have citrus trees undercover in winter and outside the rest of the year.
The reality as soon as we moved in hit hard - both greenhouses needed serious repairs, virtually all the outside fruit bushes were ancient and needed replanting and annual crops such as tomatoes were needed to get the pennies coming in whilst the fruit bushes grew and the orchard started producing.
Amongst this, I still went ahead acquired some lemon, lime and orange seedlings to care for. (Ok, so I lost the labels and for three years didn't know which was which, they weren't exactly well cared for due to other pressures and two died).
But this year, they all flowered and we watched the fruit form and I remembered to water them. Last weekend, we had the first ripe organic lemon 🍋. It smelt wonderful and tasted fantastic. There are baby limes on another bush, and possibly an orange. Or another lemon. I'll write new labels once I know for sure 🤣
It'll still be a long time before I have my citrus grove, but it's lovely seeing a plan come through.
