cherry time

[Rock Chuck]

The sweet cherries are ready. We have 2 trees. The Lambert's earlier and we picked it July 4. The other, a Van , is later and we're picking it now. Being later, it produces MUCH more fruit even though the trees are the same size. We picked about 10 gal last night and will get maybe 5 more today. We lost them to frost the last 2 years so they're making up for lost time.

Most of these will go in the freezer. We just wash and dry them then stem them. Then we just put them in qt bags and throw them in the freezer. We eat them when they're still half frozen. They taste very close to fresh this way.

The apricots are starting to turn, too, but the earliest one won't be ready until early Aug.

[Bill Gunn]

I love the sweet Cherry's. Best snack in the world. We have tons of Black Raspberries growing wild all around our property. My Grandson came in yesterday with blue hands and face :D

[Altjaeger]

Rock Chuck, you can send 10 quarts mixed variety!!!:D

Bill, I remember picking blackberries for breakfast on my grandmother's farm. Here they are gone about mid May.

[ncboman]

No cherries here ...

busy canning tomatos though ...

and

... us got watermelons. :D

[dave-t.]

Our cherries were picked clean by the birds before I ever saw a red one! One tiny little tree that put out maybe 50 last year.

We had a freeze when our plums were blooming and we ended up only picking 2. They didn't make it back to the house.

[Rock Chuck]

Robins and cherries don't mix. If you want cherries, you have to net the trees. Also, you have to do it when the cherries are just starting to turn a little pink because the robins will eat them long before they're ripe. I don't begrudge the birds eating a few cherries, but they'll peck every one once and leave it, ruining 100 times more than they eat.
I keep my trees pruned down to where I can get the nets on and can pick the top branches with my 10' orchard ladder. Getting the nets off is harder without tearing them apart.

[dave-t.]

I thought it was mocking birds getting them.

Do you know what would take a peck out of stawberries? Towards the end of their production it was hard to find one that hadn't been sampled already by something.

[Altjaeger]

All our Japanese persimmons dropped of the tree in late May. My best guess is not enough water. I will shoot more to it next year.

[ncboman]

Noticed some of the limbs breaking in one of my pear trees and thinned the fruit yesterday. I figure about 3 bushels of pears from it and it's still loaded up where I couldn't reach. :rolleyes:

[Rock Chuck]

A few years ago I bought a 10' orchard ladder, the 3 legged kind. I could have got a longer one, but I keep my trees pruned to where I can reach them with this one. It's soooooo much easier than with a step ladder.

[ncboman]

never seen one.

I had all I wanted at one time from the ground. :D

I can probably reach nearly all the rest from a step ladder but it gets kinda old thinnin 30 pears to leave 2 or 3 per limb.

Still far more pears than we'll use but the tree is right on the road and I like to show nice size pears. :)

[Rock Chuck]

One of these thingys. The pole swings so you can set it where you need it. A single pole is easy to get between limbs, unlike a step ladder. With the wide base, it's very stable.

http://www.planetgreenspot.com/v/vspfiles/photos/Stokes-OrchardLadder-1110-2.jpg

[ncboman]

cool, that might come in handy doing facia work over shrubs too.

What do you do with all that netting in the off season?

[Rock Chuck]

This ladder is excellent for working around bushes.
I store the nets where I HOPE the mice won't find them. Damn mice have ruined a lot of my stuff in the past.

[Alan R McDaniel Jr]

That's like what a fella told about decoy bags. He said that the rats like $15 decoy bags just as much as they like $30 decoy bags. So he always fed them the $15 variety.

Water is an issue down here, especially this year. Any kind of fruit tree is tough to grow but we have a few figs in the neighborhood and those neighbors who simply watch the birds and wasps gnaw on them till they fall off the tree don't mind if I get a few too. I eat as many as I can fresh but we make preserves some years. We used to have a pretty good dewberry patch located but the danged property owners fenced us out. Can you believe that? In recent years Muscadine grapes have provided satisfaction of our jelly making, canning fetish. This year nothing got enough water to make much.

Alan

[45seventy]

When i was a kid, we had 5 cherry trees. When they were close to getting ripe, my dad would get a lawn chair, a cooler of beer, an old daisy BB gun, two 5 gallon buckets and sit under those trees all day long. He would wear those robins out, and fill those buckets with them just as fast as they would land! We always had fresh cherries.

[Rock Chuck]

Unfortunately, I'm not retired. It's nets or no cherries. Then there's the small matter of almost all birds being protected these days..........

[45seventy]

Yeah, I hear ya on the protected birds, and robins are on that list. But, he used to do that back in the late 60's and early 70's. Things seemed a little different back then, and he was bound and determined to have fresh cherry pie.:)

[ncboman]

when birds attack your crops or livestock, they become legally unprotected.

[45seventy]

That's probably true, but I wonder how hard it would be to convince the warden of that.:( One thing tho....at age 89 he could still pop those robins at 25feet with that ol BB gun.:)

[Greywolf]

That's probably true, but I wonder how hard it would be to convince the warden of that.:( One thing tho....at age 89 he could still pop those robins at 25feet with that ol BB gun.:)

A quick autopsy with a pocket kniofe would determine guilt or inocence:D

[45seventy]

I used to tell him to just pluck and pull the breast, then fry em up. Destroy the evidence so to speak. Prolly taste just like dove.:D

[Bill Gunn]

Prolly taste just like dove.:D

:D :D Or worms :D :D


GW....


kniofe

are you still trying to convince us that " SH!^ " was your keyboards fault ?? :D :D

[Alan R McDaniel Jr]

Whispered (actually, they are very good. moist dark meat. tastes like woodcock.)

Coonasses love em. So I've heard.

Alan

[Altjaeger]

Whispered (actually, they are very good. moist dark meat. tastes like woodcock.)

Coonasses love em. So I've heard.

Alan

I know from my youth that meadowlark can be pretty tasty. :)

In Italy during a spring season they will string nets with glue capturing all varieties of sparrow size bird reducing them to the pot.

[Greywolf]

:D :D Or worms :D :D


GW....



are you still trying to convince us that " SH!^ " was your keyboards fault ?? :D :D

Sorry Bill,
The honest truth is my figers stutter and stammer, really.
I try to go back over what I have typed to do away with the doubled and trippled leters and letters touched by uncoordinaded hand, but I don't always catch all of them.
this is no BS.
GW:confused:

[Bill Gunn]

Sorry GW, I was only kidding, I've been there in spades.
I could hardly post for a year from the tremors my medications gave me because I couldn't control a mouse. I couldn't even sign my name to use a credit card, but my wife thought that was an improvement :rolleyes:
I had to totally quit target shooting, that was hopeless.....
Between the Prograf, CellCept and the Prednisone, I thought they were trying to kill me, not cure me.

Bill

[Greywolf]

Yeh,
I remember well, the silent times.

Drugs.
All the drugs they gave me to keep me alive are killing me. Honest Injun.


back to "cherry pickin"

[dave-t.]

I'm pretty sure NC is on thhe mark if the birds are after your produce.

There was a big deal on the TV news a couple of years ago about a guy that killed a hawk in a KC neighborhood with a 12gauge. He raised pigeons, and the hawk took one of his prized birds right out of the air. The old guy went in got the gun, loaded it, ran back outside, and whacked the hawk in the middle of the street with witnesses. It was a big deal.

No charges filed.:eek:

Didn't help the pigeon one bit.:cool:

[45seventy]

Sounds like that guy has a lot of stones. I would have been afraid to do that. Hawks being federally protected and all. My hats off to him. Hmm...wonder how hawk would taste?:)