
While not significant, sweet cherries are higher in calories than sour due to their increased sugar content. Keep the sugar content in mind when choosing what fruit to consume. The majority of US-grown sour cherries are produced in Michigan.īoth types of cherries have more innate sugar than many other fruits. They are typically used in pies or sauces. Sour cherries are too tart for most of us to eat raw. In the US, about 85% of sweet cherries are grown in Washington, Oregon and California. Sweet cherries, the most noted of which are Bing, come in more than 500 varieties and have enough innate sugar that eating them raw is a favorite sweet treat. There are two primary types of cherries grown-sweet or sour. Cherries are part of the rose family, which also contains apricots, plums and peaches. Cherries are known as drupes they are fruit with a thin skin, fleshy pulp and a stone containing the seed. They arrived in America with our earlier settlers in the 1600s.
#Sweet cherries bitter two farm stands full
Since cherry season is short, be sure to take full advantage of the small window of purchasing the freshest and sweetest of these little gems.Ĭherries date back to 300 BCE, and likely originated in an ancient Turkish town called Cerasus.
#Sweet cherries bitter two farm stands skin
This is slower but does not break the skin of the cherry.Memorial Day has just passed and summer is around the corner which means that we are in the beginning of cherry 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. 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.
