A trip to the foothills around lake Coeur d'Alene last week not only provided us with a sampling of wild cherries but a place for the boy to burn off some energy.
I am not exactly sure what kind of cherries these are, some of the trees had black cherries and others were red. Mostly I am interested in the stone of this fruit as I have successfully grown a number of these trees from seed in the past. Some of the trees we came across were at least 50 or 60" tall making cherry picking interesting to say the least. The trees grow extremely fast and the one in the below pictures background is four years old and may give us a cherry or two this year.
We simply plant the seeds, mark the spot, and let mother nature take it's course. In the spring, if we are lucky, there will be a few cherry trees popping up. The cherry do not germinate as readily as apple seeds so we made sure to plant enough.
13 comments:
I don't know if you're interested in this much management, but our local nursery is big on knee-high pruning of three year old whips and saplings in January. The thinking is that you chop it off about knee height, then the scaffolding starts there, giving you a mature tree that tops out right about where your arms end. Then you prune the summer growth half of its length, and so on and so forth.
Seems to work well here, and I visited a cherry orchard that did that. Every tree branched right about knee high, then went on to make a regular tree, but one that was very easy to pick.
Good for running the boy! How did the cherries taste?
Stefaneener,
Pruning the cherry trees knee high sounds really interesting. I had never heard of that before but will look into it. The grandson could even pick cherries then.
The cherries were really sweet, and just starting to ripen.
YUMMO!!! we used to have a lot of wild cherry trees here on vancouver island but unfortunately 'man' has bulldozed and built housing complexes over a goodly majority of places we used to pick... great site btw... am enjoying reading your blog..
cheers
Wow, wild cherries. I can't even imagine how delicious those must be. I. am. drooling.
I don't think I've ever eaten wild cherries - they must be delicious! Are they more intense in flavor then cultivated cherries? My dad was just telling me how laden their cherry tree is this year - enough for them AND the birds! Your 4-year-old tree is quite big already! :) Silke
Yum, cherries. Actually I was looking at some different cultivars at a garden center today checking out the different hardiness claims. Cherries are certainly on the list for the mini orchard next year!
Ir,
I hear you. The old apple orchards I hunted in with my father as a youngster are now housing developments. One of the places my wife and I gathered morel mushrooms only two years ago has now met with the same fate. What will be left for the next generation, will they even care... who knows.
Thanks for the nice comments,
Mike
L Carroll-Lee,
They were the best! A pesticide ridden bing cherry from the local grocer may be bigger, but a wild cherry or one from your own yard can't be beat.
Silke,
They were sweet, not tart like a pie cherry. Not really better than a home grown cherry, but really good in their own wild way.
The interesting thing about these trees is that they grow really tall and thrive in the shade. I hope to eventually transfer some into our back woods. I hope to some day have a laden fruit tree, any kind of fruit will do. Most of ours are just beginning to bare... I can't wait!
Randi,
I don't know a lot about cherry trees, but it would seem that some of them at least are very hardy. The place we picked the fruit is a frozen wasteland in the winter, and yet the trees thrive there. I bet they will do pretty well for you, even in your zone.
Our older apricot tree got frosted and it looks like we will only get a couple fruit this year. The currants pretty much blew off in a wind storm, but other then that our trees seem to be doing well. The little peach looks really good... fingers crossed.
Mike, thanks for your comment on my blog to Daniel - made him smile! :) He truly loves gardening - almost as much as painting! You were wondering about our lima beans sometime back. They are doing great! They decided to stay as bush beans and are really full of beans. I think one more week and we can eat the first.
Just found a wild cherry tree growing on one of my regular walks with the dog. This one, no doubt, planted by a bear!
HDR,
I know that the black bears in our neck of the woods plant apple trees.:)
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