Asparagus harvesting is over (we got 20 pounds from our little patch!) and now it’s on to one of my favorites – cherries.
Much to our surprise, when we moved in that our property had a cherry tree. We added three more, one of which has since died. This year is the first year that one of the new ones had cherries. I harvested a handful.
Our old tree is shaded a bit by some old apple trees we’ve not gotten around to taking down. Looks like we won’t have many cherries this year from her.
I love cherries. We had a cherry tree in our side yard when I was growing up. I loved mom’s cherry pies!
In the past I tried to make it down to the local farmer’s market every summer at the end of May to buy some cherries from one of the vendors. I had to get there early since they were a popular item.
Fast forward many years to meeting Dave. As he was telling me about his property he mentioned that he had cherry trees. “I just LOVE cherries” I exclaimed. “These are not sweet cherries,” he explained. Wow! I love the sour cherries even more! I decided then and there that we were a match!
In 2006 in our second summer of dating, we picked a large harvest of cherries from his trees, the last of them I used in making the cherry syrup in April.
But cherries around here are pretty fickle. (That’s why we still had some of the 2006 ones around. I hold on to them!) We’ve not had many cherries from our tree here and the new ones are just starting out. Hopefully in a couple years we’ll have lots and lots of cherries.
In honor of our cherries, I grabbed a bag from the freezer, added this new harvest and made a cherry cobbler for dinner last night.
I also enjoyed a cherry soda yesterday. You know – I’ve got to celebrate these cherries!
I’m really hoping we’ll harvest enough cherries to freeze several bags. I’m off to see if any of the other cherries have turned. Gotta get to them before the birds!
I just love sour cherries. My grandfather had a sour cherry tree at his house. Boy, the memories of climbing that tree, eating the cherries and the countless hours of the family pitting cherries!
I buy them from a local grower here when I remember to check to see if they are ready.
I can understand you wanting to keep Dave around with all those cherries 🙂
Robin recently posted..Home Veggie Garden at the end of May
Robin, I had this grand idea that we’d get enough cherries to have pits to make those warmers. You know – the ones you put in the microwave. No such luck – yet! Yep, the cherries bring back memories for sure.
Yum! I really love sour cherries as well, I don’t care for the sweet ones so much. They are pretty much my favourite fruits, for jam, in pies, as syrups…whatever 🙂
Keeping my fingers crossed for a big harvest for you this year!
Kristina recently posted..a peek of red
Kristina, I’m with you. The sweet ones are okay but these are great in pies, syrups, cobblers, straight from the tree… Looks like a small harvest. Our experience is that cherry trees produce best every other year. I have cherries in the freezer from 08 and 10 so this is our off year. I’ll be lucky if I get 4 cups to freeze. But the blueberries are doing great. Guess they will have to make up for the cherries this year.
Your cherries are lovely! The birds are your greatest rival for them, that’s for sure. Do nets help at all? I love to eat the bing cherries, but the tart ones are best for pie and cobbler.
kathy recently posted..Tuesday
Too bad it’s your off year! Do you have any idea why they do that, growing fruit only every other year? But hey, blueberries are really nice as well 🙂 I want a small blueberry shrub on my balcony next year, I read they do well in containers 🙂
Kristina recently posted..sewing vintage
Kathy, the problems with netting is difficult to cover the large tree and then when you take the netting off, you pull off the cherries. I’m off to see how many are ripe and left for me to pick!
Yum! Umm! I really love sour cherries.
I remember when I was at my grandmother house back when I was little; I remember how scared I am while climbing a cherry tree :),
But it was a relief when I saw all of those cherries I picked and get back down to eat it 🙂
Anyway those pictures look so yummy 🙂