The cherry orchard

How many fruit trees make an orchard? To be classified as a serial killer three murders is the minimum, but it takes just two trees to make an orchard. Like the National Gallery's recent once-in-a-lifetime display of two Van Gogh sunflower paintings side by side, this is similarly a rare opporutity to see my daughter's three cherry tree paintings – each painted at least a year apart – side by side. And they're just as beautiful as Van Gogh's.

Previously on Barnflakes:
Martha's Robot Paintings
The Cherry Tree

Fruity albums of the week: Apple & Cherry

LEFT: Fiona Apple – The Idler Wheel Is Wiser Than the Driver of the Screw and Whipping Cords Will Serve You More Than Ropes Will Ever Do If you think that title's long, it's nothing compared to her 1999 album, called When the Pawn Hits the Conflicts He Thinks like a King What He Knows Throws the Blows When He Goes to the Fight and He'll Win the Whole Thing Fore He Enters the Ring There's No Body to Batter When Your Mind Is Your Might So When You Go Solo, You Hold Your Own Hand and Remember That Depth Is the Greatest of Heights and If You Know Where You Stand, Then You'll Know Where to Land and If You Fall It Won't Matter, Cuz You Know That You're Right. Otherwise known as When the Pawn Hits...

RIGHT: Neneh Cherry and The Thing: The Cherry Thing The Thing, a Scandinavian jazz band named after a Don Cherry tune, were destined to team up with the Swedish Neneh Cherry at some point. Born Neneh Karlsson, she was raised by her stepfather Don Cherry and took his surname. Playing in several punk bands in her teens, it was 1989's Raw Like Sushi, featuring the huge hit Buffalo Stance, which bought her fame. Two less successful solo albums followed but throughout her career Cherry has always collaborated with other artists including Youssou N'Dour, Michael Stipe, Matt Johnson of The The, Pulp, Tricky, Peter Gabriel and Gorillaz, amongst others.

No durian, durian

Of all the signs in all the world, No Durians Allowed seems the most excessive. The king of tropical fruit tastes pretty nice but smells like 'pig-shit, turpentine and onions, garnished with a gym sock' (according to food and travel writer Richard Sterling). You either love it or hate it. Most seem to hate it. Throughout South East Asia durians are banned on public transport and public places like airports and hotels. I love the sign which, without the description 'No durians', would look more like a 'No Spiky Bombs'.

Banana vs Apple

The Velvet Underground have taken legal action against the Andy Warhol Foundation for trademark infringement of Warhol's iconic banana image, which the band claim is recognisable as the cover of their first album, The Velvet Underground and Nico.

The lawsuit was launched when the band discovered The Warhol Foundation had agreed to licence the banana image on cases and bags for Apple iPhones and iPads. Maybe the band just don't like the clash of fruit.

The banana image is already found on plenty of items, from earrings and pillows to shoes and sweets. And no one can accuse the foundation of selling out – Warhol himself would have been delighted to see his art on as many products as possible.

Five A Day?

Today I indulged in eight kinds of fruit (as well as a few veg): apple, banana, orange, raspberries, cherries, loganberries, blackberries and gooseberries.

One of the new government's latest short-sighted cut backs is to axe the Food Standards Agency. Inevitably the government has been accused of caving in to big (food) business and ignoring public health; indeed news of the FSA's demise came just days after Andrew Lansley, the health secretary, sealed a deal with the food industry.

The FSA spent years trying to introduce an easy-to-understand traffic light labelling system on food: red, amber and green labels on the front of food packaging to denote the levels of fat, salt and sugar contained in them. The food industry has spent an estimated £850m trying to block the scheme. Well, they've succeeded. Instead, politicians have backed a rival scheme backed by obesity- and baby death-causing multinationals Kraft and Nestlé.

Whether or not the Five a Day campaign is going to stay afloat remains to be seen. It already seems a struggle for many of us to manage one a day. Soon Kraft will be telling us that eating a Terry's Chocolate Orange a day counts as one of the five. In other countries in Europe, partially around the Mediterranean, seven a day is a natural average.

Apples

The apple is the king of fruit, the cause of the fall of Man, as British as the Queen, yet our supermarkets are full of cheap, imported, bland French and New Zealand varieties that travel 12,000 miles, with only one or two English ones – a Cox or Bramley, probably. There are 2,000 varieties of apple in Britain, and while I'm not suggesting supermarkets should stock them all, they could at least show a little patriotism – for the environment if nothing else. Some have great names like Hoary Morning, Winter Banana, Laxton's Rearguard, Pigs Nose Pippin and Surfleet Sour. Yet our apple trees are disappearing at an alarming rate. People don't pick them. People would rather buy bland apples from the bland supermarket. As I write, apples all over the country are falling on the ground, left to rot. Recently we picked three different varieties in a space of half a mile – all tasting completely different (and delicious) – but most of them were left to rot on the ground. Farmers destroy orchards because they get more money from cattle on the land. As usual, the government is short-sighted, and profits go before anything else. One day, in the not so distant future, we will all probably be trying to live off the land. An apple a day would be good.

The Cherry Tree

She said she liked living in Camberwell because of its abundant, open sky. The buildings are low and the streets are wide and you can see the sky. She didn’t like south-west London. She found the buildings too high and the roads too narrow. She didn't like that lack of sky.

The cherry tree looked a long way off as I stepped into her garden. I looked past the tall nettles and at the back in the left-hand corner. The cherry tree stood alone, past the nettles, like a small vision of Eden in an otherwise Hades of a concrete back garden. I saw ripe cherries on the tree and said, ‘the cherries look ripe.’ She said, ‘yes, they’re ripe. They’re just right. But I hate going out there. I always sting my legs and crunch snails. I hate the sound of snails being crushed. I’m too scared to go over there.’

There was a short silence.

I felt like a contestant on the TV series the Crystal Maze with Richard O'Brian. I was about to say I’d pick some but she said again, ‘I hate going over there’, and said it like she was expecting me to go over there.

But all I said was ‘yes’ as I still stared at the cherries in the distance like a dream and the possibility of them. I didn’t get the cherries and I didn’t get the girl. It was probably for the best.

Blackberry season

Blackberry season is upon us. Ever since a child, collecting blackberries has been an annual ritual. I used to go picking with my parents, and thirty years later I do it with my daughter. Aside from getting pricked, it's great fun, and free. Blackberries are great on their own with cream, or in a fruit salad, or in pies and crumbles. If you're adventuous try making bramble jelly. The other day we made a lovely blackberry and apple crumble – round the corner from the brambles was an apple tree with apples literally falling into my hands.

I reminded a friend about blackberries. He looked at me like I was crazy. If I want any, I'll buy them in the supermarket, he said. Why? I asked. It's safer, he said. I was stunned. Not only are supermarket blackberries expensive – I can pick a £2.50 punnet in about two minutes – but they are usually tasteless and not as healthy as they might look – British supermarkets are notorious for being more concerned about looks than taste or nutrition. Recent studies have shown prepacked fruit has vitamin C levels far below normal for unprepared fruit. Another study, by Friends of the Earth, reported that more than 50% of supermarket fruit still contained pesticide residue. Picking yourself is definately the safest option!

Living in the country, we luckily have brambles at the back of our garden. However, like foxes and rats, more seem to be found in the city nowadays. We used to live on a council estate in London and found them on the outskirts of the estate. Being near the heat given off by cars and homes helps them grow, so city blackberries seem to get bigger and juicier quicker too.

Remember the blackberry picking mantra: eat one, save one and leave one for the birds. And don't pick the low ones – dogs may have peed on them.

PS: Though summer has been something of a disappointment, there is plenty to look forward to now autumn – 'season of mist and mellow fruitfulness' – is upon us. If you're thinking of living off the land, now's the perfect time to do so*. Nuts, mushrooms and berries are all ripe for the picking, and apples, pears, plums and damsons are all in season too.

*Though this blog takes no responsibility if you get poisoned.

Barnoffee Pie

8oz shortcrust pastry
3oz butter
2oz light soft brown sugar
2 tablespoons milk
8oz can condensed milk
5 medium bananas
10oz double cream
lemon juice
2oz caster sugar

1. Use pastry to line a 9" round and 1" deep flan tin (loose bottomed). Bake blind until light golden and dried out.

2. Place butter and brown sugar in a small heavy based saucepan. Heat gently until butter melts and sugar dissolves. Bring to boil and bubble for one minute only, stirring frequently. Off the heat add the milk and condensed milk, bring to boil and bubble two minutes or until texture thickens to consistency of a very thick sauce and turns golden. Stir constantly or mixture will burn.

3. Meanwhile slice four of the bananas and place in pastry case. Spoon the warm fudge thinly but evenly over the bananas to cover completely. Leave to cool. Chill until set (about 45mins).

4. Whisk cream until it just holds its shape. Pile cream into centre of pie. Refrigerate for at least one hour so that the caramel acts on it.

5. Slice remaining banana, coat with lemon juice. Pile on top of cream.

6. Put caster sugar in small saucepan. Heat gently until sugar melts and turns to a golden caramel colour. Cool for one minute until the caramel thickens and darkens, then spoon over the banana (the caramel will run through the cream). Chill immediately to set.

Yummee!