The typical calendar of events over the year for our farms is as follows:
January through March, the trees are dormant and pruning takes place in preparation for the spring bloom.Pruning stimulates the tree to produce more buds, which in turn produces more limbs and cherry blossoms. Pruning also is important in terms of permitting enough sunlight into the crown (top) of the tree; this in turn insures that the fruit on the interior branches is receiving enough sunlight to mature. If inadequate sunlight fails to penetrate the interior parts of the treeÕs crown, the fruit will not be uniform in quality (both in taste & color). This results in lower grades for those cherries when they are taken to a processing plant. After pruning, nitrogen is placed around the base of the trees shortly after the snow melts, and the white plastic wraps are removed from the smaller trees. Around the second week in April, one often sees the buds starting to swell on the trees, as they begin to take up some of the spring meltwater. Because we are surrounded with the cold water from the east and west arms of Grand Traverse Bay, in our part of the country, cherry blossom time occurs around the last week in April and the first week in May. This depends upon the spring climate. The sweet cherry trees are the first to bloom, followed in a week to 10 days by the tart cherry trees. Because sweet cherry trees are not self-pollinating, we bring in bees to cross-fertilize the sweet cherry trees. Honey from these bees are extracted by our beekeeper and is sold at our retail stand throughout the summer and from our Holiday catalogue. Tart cherry trees bloom and self-fertilize shortly after the sweet cherry trees; because they fertilize themselves through the action of the wind, no bees are needed... but we keep the bees around to produce the honey. Once fertilization is over, the bees are removed from the orchards. From about the middle of May to the first of July, when the first cherries are harvested, we are busy responding to the forces of Mother Nature. Our task is to bring the highest quality cherries "over the finish line" without bruising, cracking, rotting (from fungal infection), or damage (from insect attacks). To do this, Dave attends weekly meetings sponsored by Michigan State University on Integrated Pest Management (IPM) techniques; this program has significantly improved our cherry crop while substantially reducing the amount of herbicides, fungicides, and insecticides that we use on our farms. This is good news, because it saves money while still producing a high quality cherry. Because of our high humidity in Michigan, it is virtually impossible to produce 100% organic cherries (believe me, we have tried). But we are committed to using all EPA (US Environmental Protection Agency) approved & recommended products, and we have a policy to minimally spray on our orchards. Starting 60 days after the first bloom, the cherry harvest begins. Because of our excellent sites and early varieties of cherries, we are usually the first farms on the Peninsula to have fruit available for sale (now you know why we plant 18 varieties of sweet cherries; some are early varieties, while others mature later.) Most of July is involved in harvesting sweet cherries--first the black sweet cherries, then the light sweet cherries (some of you know them as "Queen Anne" cherries). These cherries are hand-picked by migrants for our retail fruit stand; some of you pick them at our u-pick farm; and the remainder are mechanically harvested for the processing plant. We have about 12 varieties of black cherries and 6 varieties of light (yellow) cherries. After the sweet cherries are harvested, the tart cherry harvest begins. This harvest occurs from about the 21st of July until the middle of August. Almost all of those cherries are mechanically harvested and go to the processing plants in the area. Some of you hand pick tart cherries at our u-pick farm and make your own jams, pies, or juice. Yum! I also harvest the fruit by hand that is to go into our dried cherry products; our jams, pie filling, and other processed products; and our juice. These products are fast frozen and stored until the dust of harvest is over, and we can begin our "on the farm" processing of the products for our retain fruit stands and our Christmas catalogue. As summer, wanes, harvesting equipment is cleaned and put away, and all the trees receive a feeding of potash in fall. By November, they have dropped their leaves and have started to go into dormancy for the year. We put "wraps" around the base of our small trees (less than 4 inches in diameter) to protect the trees from mice and other rodents during the harsh winter months. And the cycle of life repeats...the next year.
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