A cherry of an idea

Last week, I drove past this orchard in East Sussex, and its Rent-a-Tree scheme has got me thinking about perhaps my favourite fruit of them all – the cherry.

I love cherries. Probably more than any other fruit, they define the British summer – the spectacular flowering, deep scent and temperamental crop that disappears long before you've had enough.

That's how I can see why Cooks Yard Farm has gone down the rental route. For around £35 a year, each renter gets to picnic in the orchard while its in blossom, pick the harvest and receive regular e-mail updates on how their crop is doing.

It sounds like a good deal to me. Growing a cherry tree with any degree of success isn't easy and making the sure the crop is at its best is pretty labour intensive. There's the regular feeding, the bending of new growth and netting from birds, and there's the fact that the season lasts just six weeks.

For these reasons it seems, unfortunately, that orchards on the decline. The inevitably-named CherryAid campaign – set up by the rather wonderful Food Lovers Britain – has some quite worrying figures. According to them, in the last 50 years we’ve lost 90% of our cherry orchards and now import around 95% of the cherries we eat.

Hopefully, rental schemes like that at Cooks Yard Farm will make sure difficult to maintain fruits like the cherry remain accessible for everyone, and go some way to reversing their decline.

Have a great week.