Pick Your Own

Pick Your Own. . Sittingbourne is surrounded by agricultural villages, the produce from which was for many centuries brought to the town to be sold or transported to London. Auctions of apples, pears, cherries and other fruits were being held from the 17th century., Cherries are native to Kent and were known to have been grown by the Romans. Henry VIII ordered his fruiterer, Richard Harris, to plant a cherry garden in nearby Teynham having tasted the fruit in Flanders. Local orchards were traditionally planted with grass between the rows of trees on which sheep, and sometimes cattle, would graze in the spring. Kent is often referred to as 'The Garden of England'., By the late 18th century many old orchards were being dug up and planted with hops with the poles coming from local woods. Often the owners of the farms would also be local innkeepers and the crops they grew would be used to provide food and drink for visitors to the town.