It’s cherry time of year! And I wanted to tell you how to get the most from that small tree in your garden, unfortunately looking at my own trees this year, which look very sparse, I didn’t feel I was the best person to tell you about them so I turned to my good friend Sarah Neaves who also happens to be one of the country’s top cherry growers for her expert knowledge.

Sarah’s family farm, AR Neaves, have been growing cherries in the Sittingbourne and Faversham area for over 70 years and supply all the top supermarkets.

Sarah says: “One of the major changes to cherry growing is the introduction of tunnelling which, as well as the obvious protection from the weather and birds, also helps to guarantee the crop with a consistent supply, extending the season from June to first week of August with ‘sweetheart’ being the last variety to crop.

“It also means they only need to use 10% of the sprays they would use for untunnelled crop that has to be a good thing!”

The main disease that hits cherries is Phytophthora or brown rot which is a bacteria caused by too much rain, there is no irradicant for it but you can spray to protect from it, it spreads easily by the touching cherries but is easily alleviated by tunnelling as this keeps the rain off. No rain does mean watering but with trickle irrigation they can be far more accurate and fertiliser can also be added to the water (fertigation) saving another job!

One of the problems this year has been a major June drop, the trouble being no one really knows why this happens, it could be down to number of chill hours, when the temperature drops below one degree, in Kent this year there was only 900 hours and they ideally need 1200, without which can cause variable flowering periods between the varieties and therefore problems with cross pollination. You may ask why don’t they just use self fertile/self pollinating varieties? But the downside to these is they tend to overset/over crop therefore you loose size which the supermarkets don’t like.

Sarah gave us some tips for growing cherries at home.

She said: “The first absolute no no is do not prune in the winter, not until after blossoming. Position sunny site in free draining soil.

“Also, avoid choosing a bush tree, go for a centre leader and tie the lateral branches down, this slows down the growth and promotes fruit bud formation, vertical branches grow wood and get too strong, horizontal branches are weak and grow fruit bud remember: grow fruit not wood!”

I asked Sarah what was her favourite recipe using cherries she said other than a good old cherry pie you can’t beat them eaten straight from the tree.