Cherries up the Wahzoo.

Posted on July 28th, 2011 by Tonia 7 Comments

It’s cherry-pickin’ time ’round here! The big mature sour-cherry tree and the little sapling got ripe at the exact same time, so yesterday we spent our whole afternoon harvesting from the two.

Why Mike got to pick from the short tree and I had to pick from the tall tree, I have no clue.

They’re really sour right off the tree, but they make delicious preserves with a little sugar. We pitted them, mashed them just a little bit- leaving plenty of chunks- and cooked them down {about four parts cherries to one part sugar, and a dash of fresh lemon juice} until the consistency seemed right. Success! It’s sweet and tangy and has that certain-summery-something that cherries have.

It’s amazing how much fruit the two trees produced, even considering that some of it had already been snuck away by critters. Someday we’ll have a couple dozen cherry trees to harvest from! And it will be glorious.

7 Comments

  1. Janet says:

    What model JD is that?

  2. Mike says:

    Hi Janet,
    It is a JD 2720. It’s a great tractor!

    Mike

  3. Devin says:

    IS there anything you DON”T grow or make at home? wow.

  4. Bad Joan says:

    looks delicious and fun!!

    GTBB,
    http://badjoan.blogspot.com

  5. clothespin says:

    I grew up on a farm in Kansas and my Grandma, who lived 1/2 mile away, had about 6 sour cherry trees. Every summer, all 3 of us kids and my mom and my grandparents would pick ALL of the cherries. Dad or Grandpa would get the tractor with the lift to reach the top branches… It was a lot of work picking, and then we had to pit and can the cherries, too. (We used bobby pins to pit – do you?) They had to bribe us kids to keep picking with ice cream bars from Grandma’s freezer. Gads, it was so hot! I’m not sure if Mom added sugar to the cherries before canning or not… I am thinking not. I think that the sugar was added upon use in making a pie or cobbler or something.

    Now, living in Texas, it’s too hot to grow cherries down here – and I miss them! Grandma’s trees are long gone, too. Maybe some day I’ll get to move further north and plant a bunch of sour cherries to torment my daughter with!

  6. What a delightful life. I’m so happy I’ve stumbled upon your blog. This city girl is going to live vicariously though you from now on.

  7. Tonia says:

    Wonderful story!! We heard about the clothespin method for pitting, but we actually just bought a $10 pitter on amazon.com and it worked great. It only does one cherry at a time, so I just hunkered down with a movie in front of me and pitted away until they were all done. Cherries really are a special fruit, and especially the sour ones for some reason, make me feel really AMERICAN. They’re just kind of iconic.

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