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"Life is just a bowl of cherries." For more information on cherries, click on "Links" on the left side of this page, then click on the Cherry Marketing Institute and the Choose Cherries links. Our red tart cherry and red raspberry harvest are tentatively scheduled to start first week in July 2008. We will have pick-your-own and picked cherries and raspberries. Bakery and gift shop will be open with new items. If you have picked before or have put your name on our cherry mailing list you will receive a card giving the start date for picking. If you would like to be on the Cherry Mailing List, please e-mail us. CHERRY HISTORY, LORE AND CULTIVATION The cherry is a drupe - a fleshy fruit with a single hard stone enclosing a seed, and is another member of the family Rosaceae, Genus: Prunus. The tart or pie cherry, is Prunus cerasus. The sweet cherry Prunus Avium, is thought to have originated in the Caucasus Mountains, also in northern Turkey and Iran. The sour cherry is thought to be a hybrid between the sweet cherry and a wild ground cherry that grew in the eastern and central portion of Europe. Cherries were cultivated in Greece, the word cherry coming from the classical Greek word kerasos. According to writer, Pliny the Elder, Greek author of a compendium of natural sciences written in the 1st Century, there were then eight different varieties of cherries being cultivated in Italy. Cherry trees have been grown extensively in Great Britain and France for hundreds of years. In 1629 the colonists coming to America brought about two dozen different varieties with them; the pioneers carried seeds and trees west. The wild cherries called chokecherries, Prunus virginiana, were already known to Native Americans. Currently over 900 varieties of sweet cherries are recorded, and 300 sour cherry varieties. In Japan over 100 cherry varieties are grown, with the number of petals per blossom ranging from the usual five to twenty, fifty and even an amazing one hundred petals per blossom, with colors ranging, from white, to pink, to a pale yellow. Maraschino cherries are today cooked in syrup, artificially flavored and colored. The origin is the marasca, a small, black, bitter cherry that grew in Dalmatia, the capital of Croatia. This original maraschino was a sweet liqueur made from fermented marasca juice and the crushed cherry stones. This mixture was fermented, then distilled. Kirschwasser, most often called Kirsch, is a colorless liqueur that originated in Germany, made from distilled juice of black cherries and crushed cherry stones. Ratafia, is of French Creole origin, is made by soaking ripe cherries in alcohol for several days, after which a sugar syrup is added to encourage fermentation. "Cherry Bounce" is a modern version of the alcohol-cherry mixture. Combine: 1 quart fresh sweet or tart cherries. Add: 1/2 lb. sugar cubes. 1 Tbsp. whole allspice. 1 Tbsp. whole cloves. 1 stick cinnamon. 1 pint whiskey. Wash cherries and remove stems. Take a large mouth jar and fill in layers: cherries, sugar, a few whole spice, repeat until bottle is almost full. Add whiskey to fill. Cork and let stand in a dark place for two months or more. Strain before serving as a liqueur. Serve the cherries as hors d'oeuvres. Recipes with tart cherries paired with meat are still popular. Dried tart cherries are now widely available, and are a quick nutritious snack, and a tart addition to recipes. Cold sour cherry soup is a traditional recipe from Hungary. Griottes, are better known as chocolate covered cherries, originally a French creation that included kirsch encased in chocolate. Fruit smoothies, made with either dairy milk or soy milk and bananas can benefit in color and flavor from the addition of 1/2 cup of fresh pitted sweet or sour cherries, or tart cherry pie filling. "Take 20 cherries and call me in the morning." The Natural Health Magazine states that according to Michigan State University research, red cherries have more anti-inflammatory properties than aspirin in relieving pain from arthritis and gout. The cultivar Montmorency constitutes our major cherry planting. It is part of the amarelle group, which has a colorless or very light red juice. Future production will also be of the cultivars: Balaton and Black Beauty, which have a more firm flesh, and are larger and sweeter than Montmorency. The rootstocks that we use for cherries are mazzard (P. avium), and mahaleb (P. mahaleb), and MM/60. All tart cherry cultivars are self-compatible, that is, they set fruit with their own pollen, only one cultivar is necessary.
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