Cherries

I said recently that my cherry tree had branches almost touching the floor, it was so laden with fruit.  It's a big old cherry tree standing proud about 10 mtrs (35ft) high in the very heart of the orchard

Well, I have now had the pleasure of harvesting the first of those succulent fruits and I am not at all disappointed.

I picked the first basket full the other day, which weighed in at almost 5 kgs, (10 pounds) and, of course, that doesn't include all those fruits that disappeared during the picking process.   A strange phenomenon, the way rich succulent cherries can get picked from the tree but no longer be in your hand after it has passed your mouth and arrived at the basket!

Still, this was the very first picking from the orchard this year, and there are still loads more where they came from and another two smaller trees of later varieties well on the way to being ready to pick.  As always, I pick the fruit that is available to me standing on the ground and leave the rest for the birds.

I have about 30 fruit trees in the orchard and this year it really is looking like it will be a bumper fruit year. Cherry, pear, apple, plum and peach trees all have excellent fruit on them. 

When I bought this property about 6 years ago I inherited some fruit trees which I have added to until I have the present orchard.  Sadly, I have no information about the various varieties of things but maybe, from now on, I shall make more effort to identify things better.

I usually try to make some jam on the day I pick fruit but this week, I simply didn't have the time so, a lot of the cherries were piled into a fruit bowl to be eaten fresh but the rest were simply frozen for attention later.