IF YOU like your English summer fruit then you, like me, will be delighted at the selection of fruit available at the market this month.

Our regular fruit provider:; Over Farm with strawberries, raspberries, currants and gooseberries and Besley strawberries and Coleshill Organic with organic versions of all the above have been joined for July by Court Farm who will add their superb cherry crop (20 varieties) and blueberries to the mix.

We would have had early season plums too but old Jim from Croft Farm had his whole early variety wiped out by the thunderstorm last week, which ruined the fruit by splitting their delicate skins. Such is the life of the farmer!

There was an interesting report into the health benefits of organic produce this week, with tests showing that besides the very obvious benefit of not spraying poison all over the Earth (which is a fact they always curiously ignore when discussing the benefits of organic food) the produce was actually healthier too.

The study, carried out by scientists at Newcastle University, concluded that organic crops are up to 70 per cent richer in key antioxidants and significantly lower in harmful heavy metals.

Stroud Farmers’ market is packed with organic producers.

On the meat front we have Adeys Organic Farm; for veg and fruit we have Newark Farm, Hotch Potch and Coleshill; for bread we have Hobbs House; for eggs we have Overton.

Then you can add to this list the vast majority of the rest of the stalls, as there are many that use organic ingredients or un-sprayed crops but are not registered organic.

The affordability issue reared its head again too.

I read a comment from a mum who said although we might all be slightly worse off than we were, she would rather cut back on other things than the quality of her food shopping.