The best British cherry producers
Sophie Morris takes a closer look at the best producers of the deliciously sweet, dark red fruit.
What’s so special about British cherries? Well, for starters, blink and you’ll miss them. We have an extremely short cherry season in the UK, usually around four weeks. This year it has come early for most farmers, with the fruit ripening in mid-June instead of towards the end of the month, so you need to get moving if you want to taste the best specimens.
In the past 50 years we have lost 90% of our cherry orchards, which is another reason most fruit has to be imported, usually from the US, Spain and Turkey.
Thanks to commitment from major supermarkets and Food Lovers Britain’s CherryAid campaign, the British cherry has enjoyed something of a revival over the past few years.
If you look out for British cherries and buy locally, you can support the industry and enjoy some of the finest fruit available – see below for some great cherry recipes.
Garson’s
In the lush environs of Esher in Surrey, Garson’s farm has one hectare of cherry trees and is at the height of picking season. Farm manager Steve Gallimore explains that they grow five varieties of cherry because it is a fairly temperamental crop, but all are the sweet, dark red, juicy fruits we expect to find in shops and markets.
Stella is the most widely grown cherry, because it produces fruit most years and quite early, along with Summer Sun. Colney and Sweetheart appear slightly later on, which means that Garson’s can continue its picking season into late July when the Penny cherry trees will be ready – a new variety for the farm this year.
Visit the farm shop and you can get your fingers sticky picking your own, for £5.99 a kilo.
Sidnall Farm, Lower Hope Fruits
Sidnall Farm in Hertfordshire has 70 acres for all of its soft fruits and the cherry trees are well looked after – enjoying views across to the Malvern Hills as they blossom in spring and the fruit develops.
Owner Clive Richards won the Top Fruit Grower Award at this year’s Horticulture Grower of the Year ceremony and supplies major supermarkets including Waitrose, Marks & Spencer and Sainsbury’s, all of which have made a commitment to selling as great a proportion of British cherries as possible during the short season.
Lower Hope has livestock and arable land but its fruit production has been increasing rapidly for the past several years, and owner Clive Richards is considered one of the best cherry producers in the country.
High House
Fruit has been growing at High House Fruit Farm on Suffolk’s Heritage Coast for almost half a century. Around 300 trees – Merchant, Summer Sun, Stella and Penny - sit on half an acre and the fruit is all sold locally, within a 12-mile radius, to farm shops, markets, restaurants and hotels.
This cuts down on food miles and benefits the local economy. Plus, the family feel they get more out of it this way. Although High House does pick your own fruit, its cherries are not on the menu because the fruit is so difficult to grow and unreliable, and they want to protect the trees.
Like most cherry producers this year, the season came early, in mid-June, at High House, so track your punnet down before it’s too late.
Broomfields
Colin and Fiona Broomfield run their eponymous farm and farm shop, Broomfields, in Bromsgrove in Worcestershire. This year they have undertaken a very special cherry mission – to produce Rainier cherries, a golden hybrid variety which until now has been import-only from Washington.
The family have been farming for over 100 years and M&S set them the challenge of growing the Rainer cherries, which are a lot sweeter and more delicate than red cherries.
They arrived in store last week and should be around for the next two to three weeks. But if you want to sample the best cherries the UK can grow, you’ll pay for the pleasure – Rainer cost £4.99 for 225g at M&S, compared to £2.49 for 250g of the standard fruit.
Also worth your attention:
James Martin’s cherry and macademia cobbler
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