Gearing up for National Cherry Day

Loads of things are going on for National Cherry Day. Look out for the FoodLovers team at Borough Market, with cherry cheese tastings; buy cherries at Sheffield Country Market and Mortimer Country Food Fair in Hereford as well as Food Inc in Notting Hill and at The Ludlow Food Centre; look out for cherries on menus in restaurants across the country, including The Harrow Inn in Kent, Blueprint Cafe in London and The New Angel in Dartmouth.

Join our CherryAid Facebook group

After a few lessons in the art that is Facebook, Henrietta has set "CherryAid" up as a group so if you are reading this blog and want to add your voice to the campaign via Facebook why not join here

Beware the imported cherries...

If you're out and about in cherry-land over the next few weeks - otherwise known as Kent, Buckinghamshire, Hertfordshire, Worcestershire, Devon or anywhere around the south - do not be bamboozled by all those rustic-looking cherry-sellers out on the roadside. English cherries aren't in season yet, and won't be for another 2-3 weeks. The roadside stalls - you can pretty much guarantee - will be selling foreign cherries, so make sure you know what you're getting.

Rent a cherry tree

If you love cherries as much as I do, why don't you rent a cherry tree? Michael Dallaway at Rent a Cherry Tree has a scheme where for £30 you can rent a cherry tree for a whole year, giving you the specific tree location in the orchard and when the cherries are ripe for the picking, you go along and pick them to devour as you wish!

With these juicy berries all becoming ripe in a fairly short window, you have to either really like cherries and have them for breakfast, lunch and dinner, or get creative. Being inspired in the kitchen is something that working with seasonal ingredients demands, and so I am planning to make cherry compotes, cherry pies, cherry chocolate brownies, preserve them as cherry jam, and freeze them for a cherry injection throughout the year. I honestly cannot wait for them to ripen!

I have to say that I love this this scheme on many levels, largely for the reasonably priced local seasonal fruit I will be overwhelmed with, but also for the guaranteed price this scheme provides for Michael and his orchard, hopefully preserving the orchard for future generations of cherry lovers.

We're on the Radio as well!

Hi All

Henrietta had the pleasure of speaking with Mr Evans yesterday on BBC Radio 2, if you missed it then you can listen again here its Wed (21st May) at 6:30pm.

Happy Listening

We're on TV...!

Look out for Henrietta on BBC Breakfast tomorrow morning. She'll be talking about CherryAid from Lynsted Park Farm Cherry Orchard

The BBC... if they can't get people talking about cherries, nobody will!

Hi All

This is Sarah from FoodLovers, I see a few of you have posted some interesting comments about how to combat the inflated prices of cherries. I'm glad you have raised the point and have also been saddened to see the foriegn imports infiltrating my local veg shops in the last few days. However, rather than thinking about painting plums and adding cherries to cheap coke you could join us at pick-your-owns during July. Before you shout out, I know a lot of these are in the South of England, however, since launching this campaign we have found some orchards as far up the country as Aberdeen, so if you know anymore to add to this map please let us know.

Remember, if we start demanding more then prices will drop, English cherry growers have to demand the higher price for now whilst the foriegn imports are at large. In the meantime we should enjoy cherries when they are in season, our own country's season I might add (mid/late June -August).