I kind of hate to reveal this secret stash…but not too far from our house is a mature cherry tree that we share with another family. It actually belongs to neither of us, but we cheerfully share what we don’t own. History tells us that this is not always the case with humans…
At first I thought it was a sour cherry tree, but now I have learned that I was harvesting the cherries too early. When the cherries are deep dark red they are best. But of course you have to somehow beat out the birds and the mold. The weather has to be just right so that everything has enough water and gets ripe, but not too humid or within days the berries are spoiled. It’s a short window and we missed it last year.
This June we remembered the magical cherry tree in time. We ran over with ladders’n’ baskets ‘n’ buckets ‘n’ ropes (and permission of course), and picked 10 lb of cherries! Note: Deer also like cherries& berries, so the ground under these plants is often loaded with their poops. Owen got terribly sick once from eating fruit fall while Edward and I were above picking. To solve this problem we lay sheets down under the tree. If the ground is wet, lay down a garden plastic tarp first and then a clean sheet (if your tarp looks like our garden tarps).
Then we brought them home and of course immediately processed them so that they wouldn’t rot on our kitchen counter. Which can easily happen.
HOW TO PROCESS: I rinsed them, picked out all the bad ones, rinsed them again, poured them out on a towel and picked out more bad ones. Then I poured them by handfuls into a wonderful German-made cherry pitter (one of the great gifts I have received in my life) — And picked out more bad ones as they headed down the chute.
We spread them on parchment paper on a cookie sheet and froze them. Then we collapsed!!
Next day I put them into a ziplock bag, 4 cups each, and sucked the air out with a straw.
Tadum! So far I’ve made one great pie and some excellent cherry sauce. I guess I better hide a bag at the bottom of the freezer if we are going to make it to cherry pie at Christmas…
Suburban Growing 