4m x 3m Omlet pen, cube, new auto door still boxed and coop light

[Guest]

pls don't move this to ATN as it's not a recipe

 

Does anyone know if one can by lemons grown in Britain? I've googled but got everything but the info I need and it's doing my head in!

 

ta

 

[Christian]

Should I move it to Self Sufficient Life then Poet?

 

I think you can grow them in Britain, but you would need a conservatory for them in the winter. Or a heated greenhouse.

[Sheilaz]

Although I've successfully grown them indoors (until pests killed off the plant) I've never seen them for sale as local produce.

 

The plants are an expensive initial outlay, for a rather small quanity of lemons in return. Delicious though!

 

Might be possible soon in the S.East at least if we get some hotter, sunnier summers!

However, unlike soft fruits, I don't think it's currently commercially viable because of the long growing season.

 

Unless anyone else knows different?

[speckleyboo]

you can by lemon trees, bought one week or so ago in Wyvale garden centre, its only small but has lots of lemons growing, it was £19.99, my aunt also has one she got much earlier in the year from Homebase, its bigger than mine and cost about £30 i think she said

[Egluntyne]

My friend has a lemon tree in her conservatory.

 

She once commented that it needed more care than a new baby.

[Mrs Webmuppet]

I have a lemon tree too. Fussier than my orchids!

[Helen&Lee]

I've got an Orange and a Lemon tree.

 

Only purchased in April, I have no idea if I'll ever get fruit off them.

 

They were £15.00 each, are about 6ft tall and he told me to bring them in for the winter - lucky I have a big conservatory

 

I did see fruit on the ones at the Malvern Garden Show, but I have no idea what conditions they had been kept in.

[Cinnamon]

As a point of interest,lemons are very soon going to be in very short supply as there is some disease that has affected them overseas.

The price has already shot up - the papers say that there may even be none at all later this summer

 

I bought a big load at the farmers market last week,& have sliced & frozen them so my G&T doesn't have to go lemonless

 

A lemon tree is on my wish list for when we get a conservatory

Edited July 17, 2008 by Guest

[miffy]

We have a lemon tree which was ahouse warming present, it lives in the polytunnel, weather not consistant enough to bring it out. We have a number of small fruit on it. Needs feeding evry week all year with special feeds and it will drop all its leaves if it gets dry or too wet

[Looney]

A friend bought us a small lemon tree for a present and I managed to kill it in record time....it's always embarrasing when that happens

 

Ooh err, just thought................*rushes off to see if bonsai is still alive as friend that gave it to me is visiting this weekend...*

[Tina C]

I am guessing this question has something to do with your latest venture rather than a desire to become a lemon farmer. From the above replies it looks unlikely you will be able to source UK-grown lemons.

 

The next best thing would probably be to source via your local organic box scheme? River Nene import theirs from Spain and Turkey but they do not airfreight (lower carbon footprint).

 

Hope I have not gone off on completely the wrong tangent.

 

From the river nene website:

 

Some items – such as tomatoes – have become year round staples. We’ve discovered that the environmental cost of bringing them from Southern Europe is much lower than growing them under heated glass in the UK.

 

I know its about tomatoes but I guess the same argument can apply to lemons.

[Guest]

I am guessing this question has something to do with your latest venture rather than a desire to become a lemon farmer. .

 

exactly!!!!! I don't want to grow them, just buy them. I'm trying to source local (or at least British) ingredients.

 

I did ponder the fact that heated greenhouses would be needed to grow them here so which carbon footprint is lower? Importing them or using fuel to grow them here!? I'll just have to get them from the local grocers I think

 

I'm in talks with a cheshire farmer about a butter supply at the moment

[Guest]

As a point of interest,lemons are very soon going to be in very short supply as there is some disease that has affected them overseas.

The price has already shot up - the papers say that there may even be none at all later this summer

 

 

i could diversify into orange or lime curd I s'pose, if that happens

[Guest]

I remember holidays in spain and cyprus and we'd walk past trees bearing the biggest oranges and lemons. They were hanging over the walls in people's gardens and could have been had for free!

 

The house behind us, their pear tree overhangs into our garden and we've been known to help ourselves to a pear or two

[rachel19]

When i was in South Africa they had fields full of lemon and orange trees and the orange blossom smelled amazing - one of the nicest smells ever i think.

[Cate in NZ]

I was in a bar last night and after I'd ordered my drinks the bar tender said that he'd run out of lemon for the G&T and Sol beer that I'd ordered, so he'd bring them over in a few mins....... he had to nip out to the garden to pick another lemon

 

I've got a mandarin orange tree growing in my back garden. loads of little green fruits on it and I'm hankering for my own lemon tree too, but can't plant anything yet 'cos we're in a rental property. Might have to buy one in a pot .

 

Sorry Poet, no help to you I'm afraid but I'd echo what the others have said about growing lemons in the UK. I did have a lemon tree for a while at home kept it in the conservatory and nurtured it carefully, but we never got any ripe fruit from it (lots of unripe though, they just never amounted to anything) and it died after a couple of years or so . I don't have particularly green fingers though . I think lemons would be far too difficult to grow comercially in the UK climate though

[Ana's flock]

I've tried to bring a little Mediterranean into my house and planted mandarine and lemon seeds in little pots. They did germinate nicely in the south facing kitchen windowsill, and it all was well until they went into bigger pots. I had one going for about 10 years, but it still was very tiny. However, I manage to grow little cherry tomatoes on the same window and they are a real tomatoey explosion of flavour.

 

I think the problem is that although you can keep them away from frosts in a greenhouse or conservatory they don't get enough sunlight hours in the winter and that stops their normal growth. Also they come into fruit in the winter too, and they need the sunlight to make the fruit sweet (and enough water to make it juicy).

 

Citrus are very delicate trees. In the village where my father grew up we have a humongous, old family orange tree, that's a bit abandoned because although people help themselves to fruit, "Ooops, word censored!"ody bothers trimming it, feeding it etc..., and still produces lots of gorgeous fat juicy oranges - we also have a couple of equally established lemon trees; yet in the village my mother grew up, no oranges or lemons can be grown, as it's a bit higher up in the mountain and it gets frosts in the winter - they're only 10 Km apart (about 7 miles from each other).

 

They need even sunlight hours through the year, plus a total absence of frost - so minimum temperatures of 5 or 6 C - no colder or they've had it. I suppose they can always reproduce the environment with artificial lighting in a UK greenhouse, but I don't think it'd be worth it - I mean, they do the tomatoes, and they get them red and nice looking but the flavour is just not there... I mean compared with the ones you buy in local shops in places like Spain, Italy or Greece...

 

Olive trees are sturdier. I've had one in my garden in the UK for the last couple of years and it's still going well. It has lots of buds, let's hope we can get some little olives come January.

 

Anyway, I tend to buy locally farmed products, and for oranges, lemons and bananas I like to buy the ones that travelled the least to get here, usually from mainland Spain or the Canaries (lovely bananas - smallish but tasty).

 

French and Spanish melons are now in season and on offer at my local Sainsbury's: I don't know what they've put in them this year but all the ones I got are absolutely deliciously gorgeously sweet!...

 

...and now I'm hungry...

[Cinnamon]

In the village where my father grew up we have a humongous, old family orange tree, that's a bit abandoned because although people help themselves to fruit, "Ooops, word censored!"ody bothers trimming it, feeding it etc..., and still produces lots of gorgeous fat juicy oranges - we also have a couple of equally established lemon trees; yet in the village my mother grew up, no oranges or lemons can be grown, as it's a bit higher up in the mountain and it gets frosts in the winter - they're only 10 Km apart (about 7 miles from each other).

 

 

There is nothing that makes you feel more holidayish than arriving in your destination of choice & seeing lemon & orange trees bursting with fruit.

I remember in The Algarve a few years ago,the ground was just covered in dropped lemons,& smelled wonderful

 

I WILL live on the Med one day,& I WILL have a lemon tree of my own