Several folks that bought cherries from us were curious about
the type of cherries we have to offer. We have many trees with
most of them being some type of redheart and a few blackhearts.
The redhearts generally fall into two kinds-- Honeyhearts and
Governor Woods. (This information has been passed to me from
my mother and father-in-law.) The blackhearts tend to be
a little more tart than are the redhearts. Both the Honeyhearts
and the Governor Woods are much sweeter with Governor Woods being
a little sweeter and much larger.
This brings me to the last question. Do we cultivate these
cherries or are they wild? There is a type of tree that grows
here locally that is commonly known as a
wild cherry. This
type tree bears a small fruit but should not be eaten. Wild
cherry makes great firewood but not good eating! The cherries
that we sell are "tame" cherries. However we do not cultivate
or control the growth or pollination of these trees. So in one
sense these trees are "wild" as they are at the mercy of the
weather and the environment without our intervention.
Click here
for some local cherry history!
This year, 2008, is a great year for the sweet cherry
crop. We are currently picking cherries as fast as we can. We are offering
quarts of cherries at the Ashe Farmer's Market. This season's crop
is not quite as heavy as 2006, but there are plenty of cherries for
everyone. We will have cherries for Saturday 21st however we will
have to wait to see if there are any left for Saturday 28th. If you
would like cherries during the week of June 23rd give us a call and you could
come out to the farm and we will pick them for you.
Also, some buyers were interested in buying trees for transplanting
on their own property. This year we did not sell trees, mostly
because the only trees that we had to offer were "volunteers"(germinated
on their own) and therefore we had no way to know what type
tree a buyer would be getting. Also, I am ignorant about
cherry tree genetics. For 2007, we plan to offer cherry trees
probably with the knowledge to the buyer that they may not
get a particular type cherry. I also plan to research cherry
genetics and biology so that I can be more informed.