Country diary: a fruitful stroll through the cherry orchard

St Dominic, Tamar Valley: Birds have still to gorge on this abundance, with plenty left high up, beyond our reachBirchenhayes, Burcombes and Bullions - the best of a succession of black dessert cherries once grown widely in the valley - have been picked over the past month. Tall leafy trees are laden, from twigs close to lichen-covered stocks (trunks) outwards to drooping branches, where fruit can be gathered from ground level. Birds have still to pitch in and gorge on this abundance, with plenty left high up, beyond the reach of family and friends who have been invited to pick their own delicious fruit for daily feasts, freezers, jam, juice and puree.At the peak of local cherry production, more than a century ago, news of crops featured in regional newspapers, with accounts of "plagues of starlings" flocking from roosts in reedbeds opposite Halton Quay to strip and spoil bountiful crops. There were reports of cherry fruit fly and associated banning of imports from France, Italy and Germany. At Calstock's horticultural exhibition, one of the prizewinners in the "gentlemen's class for cherries" was C Langsford, an ancestor, who was a miller at Cotehele. Continue reading...