A Great Summer For Soft Fruit

[Guest]

I reckon that this has been a great Summer for soft fruit - strawberries, raspberries, peaches, nectarines, flat/mountain peaches, cherries - cheaper from market stalls than from supermarkets

I have particularly enjoyed the dark cherries which currently seem to come from Spain (when will the Turkish ones be over here, Beefy?), raspberries from Scotland, strawberries from Herefordshire & flat peaches from Italy.

Have you had any Summer delights this year? Any recommendations to share?

And we're promised a bumper year (in both volume & quality) for British apples too

[french frank]

Two doors away my neighbours have a grapevine growing over their front fence (reachable from the street). I've never seen such a quantity of fruit. (Perhaps I should go out and take a photo to show what I mean). Last year they let them die on the vine because they didn't want to use them for anything. This year, I think I shall have a prior word ... just in case they don't intend to sell the whole lot off to a local vigneron.

[amateur51]

Two doors away my neighbours have a grapevine growing over their front fence (reachable from the street). I've never seen such a quantity of fruit. (Perhaps I should go out and take a photo to show what I mean). Last year they let them die on the vine because they didn't want to use them for anything. This year, I think I shall have a prior word ... just in case they don't intend to sell the whole lot off to a local vigneron.

Ah Garde du Fishponds (appellation controllée)?

[Anna]

My neighbours also have a grape vine, trained against their back wall, facing South, which is also doing well.

I don't think I've ever eaten as much fruit as I have this Summer. I happened to pop to the greengrocers yesterday lunchtime and got into conversation with one of his local growers who was bringing in more red and blackcurrants, raspberries, blackberries and blueberries. All locally grown and also organic. He said he'd never known such a marvellous year for fruit and how wonderful fruit was, you could never tire of it! (well, he would say that wouldn't he?)

Delights this year have been the flat (Saturn) peaches, sweet yellow plums, and discovering the delights of blueberries, the joys yet to come of English *cherries and plums.
(Edit: *There are English cherries about of course but I'm waiting until they get a bit cheaper, I've been buying cherries from the market every week for £1.50/lb, I assume they're Spanish but not sure, I'll enquire tomorrow)

[french frank]

My neighbours also have a grape vine, trained against their back wall, facing South, which is also doing well.

I don't think I've ever eaten as much fruit as I have this Summer. I happened to pop to the greengrocers yesterday lunchtime and got into conversation with one of his local growers who was bringing in more red and blackcurrants, raspberries, blackberries and blueberries. All locally grown and also organic. He said he'd never known such a marvellous year for fruit and how wonderful fruit was, you could never tire of it! (well, he would say that wouldn't he?)

Delights this year have been the flat (Saturn) peaches, sweet yellow plums, and discovering the delights of blueberries, the joys yet to come of English *cherries and plums.
(Edit: *There are English cherries about of course but I'm waiting until they get a bit cheaper, I've been buying cherries from the market every week for £1.50/lb, I assume they're Spanish but not sure, I'll enquire tomorrow)

It is optional to explain why you've edited your post, but I do find that one of the brighter aspects of this otherwise somewhat staid forum

[Russ]

Hardly any blackberries this year near my Mum's (Essex) probably because of the very cold late spring.

Russ

[greenilex]

Looks as though the blackberries on Southampton Common will be extra good this year, but they need a few more weeks of sun.

[jean]

It's far too early for blackberries!

I'm very sorry for people round here who have no space to grow their own, because even the (very few) independent greengrocers don't stock currants or gooseberries or English cherries and won't be stocking English plums when the time comes

[french frank]

strawberries from Herefordshire

And you're in London - we get our strawberries from Kent.

[umslopogaas]

I recently visited my sister in Herefordshire and she dished up enough strawberries to satisfy even me. I had a fantastic crop in my own garden, until the b****y squirrels found them. I struggled all afternoon to get the wire netting in place, retired with happy thoughts of strawberries to come, only to find that the field mice had nabbed the few the squirrels had left. I have therefore a. bought an air rifle and some live traps -OK, you little grey furry sods, this means war - and b. laid plans for finer wire mesh next year to deal with the mice.

[jean]

Part of the problem is that nearly everyone in the country gets their fruit via London these days, whereever it grew.

I'm lucky because I've got an allotment, but the only hope for those who haven't is the Farmers' Market, which is only once a month and may therefore miss entirely something with a short season.

I'll be interested to see what they have tomorrow.

[jean]

...I had a fantastic crop in my own garden, until the b****y squirrels found them. I struggled all afternoon to get the wire netting in place, retired with happy thoughts of strawberries to come, only to find that the field mice had nabbed the few the squirrels had left.

We have foxes to deal with that sort of problem!

[Anna]

I'm very sorry for people round here who have no space to grow their own, because even the (very few) independent greengrocers don't stock currants or gooseberries or English cherries and won't be stocking English plums when the time comes

That's a very sweeping statement, maybe it's true in Cities or big towns but our independent greengrocer stocks local - when I say local I mean mainly over the border in Herefordshire for soft fruit - currants, gooseberries, cherries, etc., and will have English plums. When it's apple harvest time he has a mini apple-fest with old English varieties you'd never see in any supermarket. Being a rural farming area he'd soon get short shrift if he tried stocking such things as asparagus from Peru or Thailand instead of seasonal from The Wye Valley. (You'll also see from my post above I had a chat with one of the local growers who was bringing his produce in, inc. cultivated blackberries)

To go back to the cherry question in my edit, I've been to the market and the cherries he has today are from Greece (and lovely they are, plump, juicy and almost black) at £1.50/lb. I asked about English ones and he said the wholesaler was asking £7/kg which was far too expensive with no hope of re-selling on the stall with any sort of profit. I'll check out the current English cherry price at the greengrocer's tomorrow. The strawberries on the stall are from Ledbury, Herefordshire, at £1 per 400g punnet, the peaches from Spain at 8 for £1, the large tomatoes on the vine were, surprisingly, Dutch (I say surprisingly because they actually smell and taste like tomatoes) and £1 per vine of 6 large ones.

[jean]

It's not a sweeping statement - it is just, sadly, the truth for round here which is where I'm talking about!

[umslopogaas]

We've got plenty of foxes round here too, but ours cant climb trees! In any case, I think they find the rabbits an easier dinner than the squirrels.