Brooks cherries are his typical harvest, but he explains that variety cracks in the rain, so he is growing newer varieties using a KGB growing system that prevents water from collecting on the fruit. The two farm stands lie just 12 miles apart along Route 31, a straight, flat road running through a bucolic wonderland of cherry orchards and crystalline. Murray says this season’s heavy rains delayed the harvest by about three weeks. grows 60 varieties of cherries on his family's farm, which is known for bringing the first of the fruit to market each year. She shares the cherry clafoutis recipe that she has been making with her grandmother since she was a girl. Sour cherries are best for preserving, while sweet cherries are perfect for snacking. Two parts cherries to one part sugar is de Lutz's preferred ratio, with about an ounce of lemon juice for every pound of fruit. Sour cherries, which have a higher water content and are smaller, need to be refrigerated right away. Extending that enjoyment requires preserving cherries, a three-day process that involves overnight brining, then boiling up a simple syrup and packing the drained and rinsed fruit in jars. This is slower but does not break the skin of the cherry.Clemence de Lutz of The Gourmandise School of Cooking says the best way to eat cherries is immediately outside when the fruit is in season. If you plan to refrigerate them for more than a day or two, then pick with the stems. For immediate use or in salads or pies, the fast and easy way (without stems) will do. The cherries can be gone before you know it.īut with the stem or without? The best I can say is that it really depends on how and when you plan to use them. The harvest can be spread out over two weeks or so, but be forewarned hot weather can greatly accelerate the ripening process. Each variety is ready to pick at a slightly different time. We have eleven varieties of sweet cherries: Hudson, Somerset, Ulster, Heidelfingen, Lapins, Van, Sam, Ranier, Hartland, Chelan, and Schmidt as well as Montmorency sour cherries. I hope you are all hungry for cherries.īut the cherries don’t all have to be picked at the same time. But still, two acres times 300 trees per acre times ? cherries per tree – wow, that’s a lot of cherries. The number was 12,299! I think the tree in question was larger than my trees (we planted dwarf trees for easy picking). The idea was to guess the number of cherries on a tree. I just read about a contest sponsored by cherry growers in Washington last year. Cherries bear in four to seven years, starting with light crops, then increasing to 50 to 80 pounds of fruit per tree for sour cherries and more for sweet. Regardless of whether you pick with or without the stem, one thing for sure is that there will be a lot of cherries. Also, pressure from the other cherries in such tight quarters would deform the cherry and damage the skin. Space between the cherries would stay moist, fostering decay. Cherries are so fragile and susceptible to decay that they would not do well jammed tightly together. After the flowers bloom, the stem grows rapidly, giving the developing cherry some room to grow. At bloom, the cherry-flower clusters are tight to the limb. But when it comes to cherries, the decision is a weighty one of whether to pick them with the stem (slowly and carefully) or without the stem (much faster).Ĭherries grow on two- to three-inch stems, just the way that you see them in the store. Picking your own fruit leads to a lot of questions – weather forecast, clothing, how much to pick -on and on.
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