MM sucking on a lemon?

Thanks for your piece on Sotto Lemons (Money Management, July 8). A fellow from Cairns has asked for a prospectus after reading your column, so you see every little bit helps. He has friends who grow lemons commercially, and he is im-pressed with the return.

Thanks for your piece on Sotto Lemons (Money Management, July 8). A fellow from Cairns has asked for a prospectus after reading your column, so you see every little bit helps. He has friends who grow lemons commercially, and he is im-pressed with the return.

Yes, growing lemons from seeds is exciting. The choice of the right root stock for your climate and soil, the budding (graft), the feeding and farming, and the selection of the right trees to husband the commercial groves indeed is excit-ing, or at least I think so.

Now that our cities are growing up literally, backyards are being taken over by flats, and so not everyone has a lemon tree from which to supply the zest to a gin and tonic. Certainly the backyards cannot supply a Japanese order of 100,000 cases a week over an eight week period - or the orders from our near neighbours nor indeed our local markets which saw lemons reach $120 a case.

The amount of lemons I need for the lemon cheese which Loctos is making for me in Tasmania, the lemons Hanging Rock need for my lemon Chardonnay, my lemon beer, lemon sugar, salt, pepper and other value added cannot come from backyards as Two Dogs found out.

Anyway, thank you for the mention.

Peter Russell-Clarke