Did you know there's a farm at Blandford that's the biggest cherry orchard in the South West?

I didn;t, but i stumbled across while reading about Cherry Day, which is coming up, as part of a campaign called CherryAid.

NINETY-FIVE percent of our cherries are now imported and 90% of our cherry orchards have disappeared over the last 50 years.

I've eaten enough not-as-tasty-as-they-should-be cherries to know that this is not a good thing.

So I've done a bit of research. Badgers Farm at Blandford will be a massive cherry orchard but won't be in full fruit until 2013. Their website is here .

But if you don't want to wait until then and you'd like to support British cherry growers on Cherry Day, which is July 17, then the closest place to us is the amazing Garson's Farm Shop, at Titchfield. The actual cherry orchard for PYO is at Esher, but the shop should be stocking cherries. But what to make with them? I'm hunting down the best recipes as we speak...