Juicy fruits

GRAPEFRUIT used to be rare and exotic.

- Charles Quest-Ritson

My parents served them at dinner parties—I rather think they had a maraschino cherry in the middle. My father saved the seed and sowed it, too, although they never germinated—grapefruit need a higher temperature than we ever had in the vinery or greenhouse. But my family finds the temptation to grow fruit trees from seed is hard to resist.

When my diplomat daughter was working in Japan, we discovered the aromatic delights of yuzu. These are among the smaller citrus fruits, but their skin—the only part worth eating —is deliciously fragrant to nibble at the end of a meal. Yuzus were little known in Europe at the time, so we brought back some pips; they germinated very freely and, within a year or two, we had some to give away to friends. That was nearly 20 years ago and, when we meet them now, those friends invariably tell me that theirs has not yet begun to fruit. Nor have ours, but it is difficult to throw out plants over which one has fussed for so long.

A French nurseryman called Michel Bachès, who specialises in unusual members of the citrus family, told me that I need to buy a named cultivar chosen for its early fruiting. I wish I had taken his advice, now that importing plants from the European mainland is so difficult. Yuzus are available from several English nurseries, but no English nursery can match the number of citrus cultivars—some 1,000—that the Bachès nursery sells.