Our British summer is filled to the brim with fresh fruits so ripe, mouth-watering and tasty that you can almost taste the sunshine!

When you think of strawberries, do you think of tennis?

Every year, 27,000 kilograms of strawberries are eaten during the Wimbledon Tennis Championships!

It’s hardly surprising, because strawberries are rich in vitamin C, high in fibre, low in calories and high in taste! They make a great British snack.

In fact, it was the Romans who first grew strawberries for food in 200 BC.

The raspberry is a member of the rose family, but there’s nothing prickly about this delicious fruit!

There are 200 different species of raspberry but only two species are grown on a large scale – the black raspberry and the red raspberry.

Raspberries only became popular in Britain in the 1600s, so they’re a fairly new soft fruit compared to strawberries!

Here’s a berry good fact for you: raspberries grown in Scotland in the 1950s, were transported to Covent Garden, London, on a steam train called the Raspberry Special!

Have you heard of brambleberry, brumblekite and lawer? No? These are actually the names a blackberry has been called in the past!

Blackberries can be black, dark red, or even yellow! Fruit growers have grown bigger versions of the blackberry but they didn’t taste as nice, so small seems to be better!

The USA is the leading producer of blackberries.

Most blackberry plants can live for 15 to 20 years.

Fresh fruit raspberries are picked by hand. Raspberries used in cakes and jams are shaken from the plant by a machine!

Gooseberries are so-called because they were commonly used to make a sauce for roast goose!

They have grown in Britain since the 1500s.

Gooseberries can be white, yellow, green or red and they can be prickly, hairy or smooth. They can also be sour or slightly sweet.

Gooseberry bushes are prickly, so picking gooseberries can result in sore fingers!

There is a myth that says fairies live in gooseberry bushes...

A currant is a small berry that grows on a bushy shrub.

Currants are round and smooth, and they have a sour flavour. They can be black, red, gold, and white.

Blackcurrants are used mainly for making squash and juice. Redcurrants are used for making jams, pies and wines.

The word ‘currant’ dates back to 1550 when a comparison was made between the fruit and dried currants, which are made from dried grapes.

Cherries are very popular in summer. This is a good thing because they are high in antioxidants, which help fight cancer and heart disease. They are also believed to help relieve the pain caused by headaches.

Cherries were discovered by the Romans in around 70 BC, who then introduced them to Britain in the first century AD.

These days there is a popular championship, mainly in America, which involves spitting cherry pits. The stone inside a cherry is called a pit and people try and spit the pits as far as they can!

Don't try this at home (or anywhere else), kids!

Like cherries, peaches and apricots, a plum is also a stone fruit.

Plums are well known for the good they do to the digestive system – thanks to an ingredient in the plum’s skin.

There are three main types of plum, called the European, Japanese and damson.

The Japanese plum should really be called the Chinese plum, because the Japanese imported the fruit from the Chinese, who had been growing the fruit for thousands of years. The Japanese introduced the rest of the world to the plum, which is why it became known as the Japanese plum and not the Chinese plum!