FANCY some really fresh fruit and veg this weekend? Then maybe you should get out and Pick Your Own. PYO's boom time was in the 70s, when we all got freezers and self-sufficiency at the same time. Fruit farms popped up everywhere. In the early days of Lightwater Valley it was fruit they sold, not thrills; raspberries rather than rollercoasters.

Then we got lazy. PYO fruit is hard work for pickers and also for growers. A few bad summers can put everyone off. Numbers of fruit farms dwindled.

But times are changing again. Maybe we grew tired of the bland sameness of much of the supermarket fruit. We wanted fruit and vegetables that actually tasted of something, and were prepared to put our backs into it.

This summer, despite the dodgy weather, we're once again queuing up for our picking baskets and filling our cars with the fruits of our labours. And the farms and market gardens have diversified too. Many of them have much more than a punnet or two of strawberries...

SIMON Fishwick knew just what he was getting into when he took over Grants Fresh Farm Produce at Sessay, just south of Thirsk. In its previous existence as Kays, he'd worked there as a student.

Now he and wife Jane run a smaller operation than in those days but have branched out. They have a small farm shop in a barn where they sell their own fruit and veg all year round as well as a small range of other local products - Dexter beef, Rosebud preserves, free range eggs, excellent pies and puds from Melmerby. "Products we really know about so we know how they're made," says Simon.

And where for ten hours a week, they're also the village post office.

"At this time of year we've got plenty of our own produce here, about 16 different items today," says Simon. "But even in the middle of winter, we'll have at least five."

They have a basic greengrocery range for the villagers, but try to stock more unusual items too. Simon used to manage a fruit farm in Essex and soon the shop will stock some of their 15 traditional varieties of English apples. "The sorts of things you never see in supermarkets," he says.

People still come picking, says Simon. "This year has been good and there would have been more than ever, I think, if it hadn't been for the weather. A lot of families make a day out of it, especially at the weekends. People seem to be getting back into it."

But the true diversification stands in tubs in the chill cabinet - pots of good home made soup. Jane started using their own fruit and vegetables to make fresh soup - wheat-free and gluten-free, from organic stock. "She used to make it in the kitchen, just in the normal way, so she'd be on all day making it in batches," says Simon.

It then developed into a proper business, The Vale of York Soup Company, with a purpose-built kitchen at the back of the barn, and as well as their own shop, it supplies a wide range of other shops and delicatessens throughout the region.

The couple also have baby Kate and toddler James, so you think they'd have their hands full. But they still do half a dozen farmers' markets (including Ripon, Harrogate, Murton and York city centre) and Jane also bakes for the shop - beautiful light-as-a-feather sponges. Definitely a fruitful enterprise.

* Grants Fresh Farm Produce, Sessay, near Thirsk. Tel: (01845) 501816. Ready for picking at the moment are raspberries, blackcurrants, redcurrants and a few gooseberries.

RAY and Bev Emmerton are in their first season at Lanchester Fruit and are rushed off their feet. "It's been excellent. People are definitely coming back to Pick Your Own. And the nice thing about it is that we're getting all ages here - especially older teenagers and young twenty-somethings, which was a bit of a surprise. But they all seem to be enjoying themselves, so it's good," says Ray.

They beat the bad weather by setting up a little tea room in marquees. "So there's always somewhere to shelter in a shower. Or maybe Gran will stay and have a cup of tea while the rest of the family pick fruit."

About two thirds of their customers are local, the rest visitors, "including French lorry drivers who tend to slam their brakes on when they see the signs. They're used to buying fresh local produce at the roadside and like to take stuff home with them."

The Emmertons took over from Jonathan and Dotty Benson, who started Lanchester Fruit and who, after a disastrous summer when their strawberries all went soft, diversified into making jam and then apple juice. They were so successful that Lanchester Apple Juice is now found in all the best farm shops and delis.

Pressing the apple juice is a year-round operation. The Emmertons are just using the last of last year's apples before the first of this year's are ready.

"And this year, we hope to introduce some new flavours, maybe apple and strawberry, and apple and raspberry," says Ray.

When they have time, of course.

* Lanchester Fruit. Tel: (01207) 528805. This weekend they should have raspberries, blackcurrants, redcurrants, gooseberries, peas, French beans, black beans and broad beans ready for picking.

OTHER PYO fruit farms in the region include Elgeys at Piercebridge (Tel: 01325 374341) who will be reopening in the middle of August for late summer fruit including raspberries and blackberries,

Hutton Bonville, near Great Smeaton on the A167 Darlington to Northallerton road. Tel: (01609 881266). They have plenty of raspberries, blackcurrants and broad beans available this weekend.

Plawsworth Fruit Farm, near Chester-le-Street. Tel: 0191-371 0251. This weekend they have redcurrants and "excellent raspberries".

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