JB:

Whether or not Northstar is good for fresh eating depends on whether you like tart fruit. When I had Northstar trees here (they died from bacterial disease at around 20 years), the local children could be talked into eating a few straight from the tree, but not too many. Most of the Northstars were pitted and frozen for pies, cobblers, and sauce, as were the Montmorencies and Meteors. When you use tart cherries for cooking or baking, you add some sugar. The Northstars are wonderful for culinary purposes, with their dark red flesh and juice, but they are tart.

If you decide to plant a tart cherry, I would recommend Meteor, available from Gurneys, which has some genetic dwarfing, yellow flesh like the Montmorency, and is noticeably less tart than Northstar. I have a Meteor out there that is closing in on 30 years and is still very productive. Also have a younger 5 year Meteor in the back yard.

Sweet cherries are harder to grow for everyone in the Mid-Atlantic climate, not only for disease susceptibility but also cracking and insect problems on the leaves. Leaves of sweet cherries are extremely attractive to deer. But if you want a sweet cherry for fresh eating, I would go with Lapins, Black Gold, or Sandra Rose, on Gisela 5 or 6 rootstock. I think both Gurneys and Jung carry these, but make sure you get a dwarfing rootstock or you will have a very large tree.

Don Yellman, Great Falls, VA

Jellyman is in your neck of the woods and has excellent experience to speak from.

I've never tried Northstar although I was given an extra tree by a neighbor last year and it did well. Deer defoliated and pruned the new growth several times during the summer, but it still survived and has healthy looking buds to date.

I have Early Richmond and Evans pie cherries and find that if you can discourage the birds long enough, both are quite tasty when completely ripe, and the Early Richmond is still quite good while still a little green, just add a little more sugar. Kids will spend quite a bit of time in the orchard picking and eating the cherries, but give them a bucket and they will suddenly find them too much trouble. The Evans tends to be a bit astringent to me and that goes away once completely mature and dark red. At that point, the sugar is very high and it is very tasty but still a little tart. Recently had several pints that were frozen unpitted because I couldn't do anything with them at the time, and nearly ate the whole bunch because they were so sweet/tart, kind of like eating Smarties candies. They are also delicious when dried.

I've ordered some new bush cherries from St. Lawrence Nursery, Carmine Jewel and Crimson Passion.

While bush cherries are tart they can ripen with much higher sugar content than sweet cherries. Growing bush cherries is an order of magnitude easier. They grow to about 6 feet tall, on their own roots, and are highly disease resistant. I've also ordered Black Gold on Gisela 5 from Park Seed. The Black gold cherries ripen in June and the Carmine Jewel and Crimson Passion ripen in August.

Here is a link that might be useful: Park Seed

Ace, do you have bush cherries fruiting yourself? Based on numerous past discussions in this forum they sound good on paper but are not well-liked in practice, unless they are the only cherries that can grow in your climate. The biggest complaint I have heard is the small amount of fruit vs the large size of the seed.

I have found all cherry trees pretty easy to grow in the mid-Atlantic once I got in the groove - a spray or two for mildew may be needed in the hot months. But the bugs and birds have been a big problem on the fruit. I had thought moths didn't go after cherries, but I had about 3/4ths of my sweet cherries with moths last summer. The sours did a little better than that.

This coming summer I am going to spray Surround/spinosad on the cherries for moth control. The white coating is also supposed to help against heat stress as well - an added bonus I hope.

Scott

Scott, I have just planted this fall Hansen & Carmine Jewel cherries. I have an order in for Crimson Passion and Carmine Jewel from St. Lawrence. Pg. 16 in the 2008 St. Lawrence catalogue has Crimson Passion photo with quarter size cherries,"Excellent fresh eating Cherry". It says to leave cherries to ripen on the bush. They will sweeten from 14-17 brix(like regular sweet cherries) to 22 brix. Maybe folks have not tried to let them sweeten up. The Carmine Jewel is about the size of a nickle and the Crimson Passion about a size of a quarter, with a larger pit. Misfits get transplanted to our cabin upstate. A colder climate may make them taste better like some apples. The deer will love them I'm sure.

Here is a link that might be useful: Photo of Carmine Jewel cherries

JB,
Personally I like the Northstar for fresh eating and cooking, and it does well in regards to disease resistence here in DC and on the bay. Everyone's taste is different of course, but "tart" cherries have a richer, fuller taste to me than the sweet. I let them hang on for full maturity, so that will make some difference.

I don't see the attraction for the yellow flesh tart types that dominate the US Market. They have dyes added for baking pies to get the rich color that comes naturally with the morello type (like Northstar). Tart cherries are better than sweets in regards to phytonutrients, and the Merollo types easily beat out the yellow flesh types--what's not to like?

Thanks for all the suggestions. My wife, who of course thinks I'm crazy for planting so many things already, loves cherries. This was to be an amends plant, so I'll have to give it some more thought. She doesn't know I'm looking for one. I planted 2 Nanking cherries last year, taking the advise from Lee Reich's book "Uncommon Fruits for Every Garden" I then noticed it's upper limit to be zone 6 and we are pushing into zone 7. Then I read all the poor results many Gardenweber's were getting, ie. poor fruit, difficult pollination, etc. Maybe I'll leave the real cherry tree out for a few years, and see how my other goodies do.

Thanks again.
JB

The bush type cherries seem to be going through great genetic leaps in breeding the last few years, thanks to our friends at the U. of Sask. The traditional sand cherries/nanking cherries/bush cherries seemed little removed from wild cherries like chokecherries--small fruits surrounding large seeds, best for juice, jelly, or eating out of hand with a stream of seeds coming out. U. of Sask. has developed these newer varieties such as Carmine Jewel, Crimson Passion, etc. which are much more like the pie cherries you can pit and actually use whole, but on a bush type plant you don't need a ladder to pick and one you can easily cover with netting to keep the birds out long enough for the fruit to fully ripen.

These cherries are bred to withstand the far north, but don't know that they have been really tried in warmer climates. They might do just fine. I wouldn't be afraid to try a few, along with some other cherry varieties more common to your zone.

I wish I could find the Saskatoon bush cherries easier in the U.S. St Lawrence seems to be the only place you can get them. I see Gurneys has Carmine Jewel this year for $30 which is pretty crazy. I'd like to grow some Nanking and one of the UofS bush cherries this year without breaking the bank!

Does anyone have any input on the "Canada Red" Chokecherry?

>>Carmine Jewel this year for $30 which is pretty crazyYou're so right!....
I'm staying away from this one until I hear more good things about it....so far, I.M.O. nothing beats the Evans Cherry for around here.

>>Does anyone have any input on the "Canada Red" Chokecherry?What would you like to know about this one?
I think this one could be the Schubert Chokecherry with a US nursery twist?...as I have seen on some other Canadian fruit trees.
It's a ornamental tree with green leafs, turning dark a few weeks after when leafed out, suckers around the trunk.
It doesn't produce fruit very much, I like the regular choke cherry better, then I know the birds can have a feast!...and me too.
Konrad

Here is a link that might be useful: Canada Red Chokecherry

I was just reading this on a forum....

the bali cherry sold at bailey nursery is the same (evans or bali) on top but it is grafted to the mazzard rootstock on the bottom, which makes it only marginally hardy (i think only -10 degrees or so. st lawrence nursery sells them , but the stock is really poor. some trees they sell are only 8 inches tall and 1/8 inch wide, while others are 3 feet tall and barely 1/4 inch caliper. they're really spindly, and on hardly any root. you can plant a 3 foot tall tree in a 3 inch pot, that's how much root that remain on the plant. the owner smuggled the tree across the border, " named " it after his daughter, then put a patent on it, as if he developed it himself. he receives royalties on tens or maybe a hundred thousand trees per year sold at bailey and other wholesaler nurseries. thats the type pf person you deal with when you purchase from st lawrence nursery. bailey keeps touting that they are hardy to minus 54 , but they are not, because they are on mazzard rootstock,(look it up) i talked to the head horticulturist about the misleading information, but ten years later, they still put out that same false statement, because well it sounds sooo good, and it really sells those trees. buy from northern fruits in palmer ak, or from dna gardens in i think edmonton, canada.. these are on own root. the dna gardens are 6 inches tall but they are prices accordingly, and come with about as much root as the spindly ones from st lawrence

Konrad-

Do you have anything on Gisela 5? I hope they are hardy to -25F or so...

What would be the earliest (from the time you plant) sweet/sour cherry you can plant? 3 years? 4 years? Are sour quicker to bear then sweet?

So, it sounds like Northstar is too tart for most people to enjoy fresh, but it also sounds like it is pretty much perfect for pies, jams, etc.

It also sounds like Evans Bali can taste pretty good as a fresh fruit if it is allowed to fully ripen...

...but how is Evans Bali for cooking? Is it as good for cooking (aside from the less red color) as Northstar?

I'm trying to decide which to get, and it is a tough decision. It would be nice to have a cherry that is good for fresh eating, but if it is inferior for cooking it would not be worth it to me.

OK, a few more questions:

One web site I was at today (not sure which one now) mentioned that Evans Bali loses its tartness after it is frozen a while. Have any of you noticed this? It seems that this would make it less useful for cooking (?).

Is this a feature of Evans in particular, or do all cherries (e.g. Northstar) lose their tartness when frozen?

Also, it sounds like Evans is a really high yielding cherry, What are yields like with Northstar?

Sorry for so many questions. Several hours of web searching have basically just gotten me more frustrated and less certain of which one to get. If I had a larger yard I'd just get both of them, but I really only have room for one cherry.

Evans/Bali cherries I froze a couple years ago, then forgot, came out this winter. They were frozen whole because I was afraid they would spoil before I could get them run through the pitter. Result was about half got eaten while half frozen (just plain good, tart but not sour), then the rest I made a cherry topping with. They were very delicious, no change in tartness despite a couple years in the freezer. The juice was clear and red. Didn't need all the juice, so made syrup for pancakes out of the excess. With all cherries, I always taste before cooking and add sugar accordingly. I don't like a cherry pie that is just plain sweet with no tart, so if the cherries have a good sugar content to go with the tartness, I just add a bit less sugar so as not to make the thing too sweet.

As noted previously, no experience or taste of North Star, so can't compare the two. The North Star planted last year made the winter just fine and the buds are now starting to swell. Don't expect any bloom this year, though. My Evans/Bali now has its buds swelling and it will be loaded with blossoms in another 10 days to 2 weeks. I think it only has one kind of bud once it gets old enough--flower buds, then leaves come out around the flowers.

One suggestion if you don't have room for both--find out if there are any of either variety in your area, then plant what isn't and next year graft the locally growing one onto your new tree so you have a 2 in 1 tree and both varieties.

I have put in both a Northstar and a Meteor... I would like to add an Evans, but locally they are grafted, although i heard u can bury the graft? Also read you can let Evans hang on the tree longer and "sweeten" up?

Thanks for the responses to my questions.

beeone, you have dispelled my concerns about the taste of the Evan cherries. Sounds like they have very good flavor, even after freezing. It also sounds like the Evans trees are remarkably productive!

I think I'll go with the Evans, assuming the local garden store has not run out of them by now!

My only concern at this point is tree size, but I'm assuming I can somewhat limit the size by regular pruning.

I guess the suckering with the Evans might be an issue as well, but if the tree is producing really good fruit in abundance, maybe I can forgive it for its suckering habits!

The grafting idea is cool. I suspect there are some people in my neighborhood with Northstar, and I might be able to beg a twig off of them!

beeone,

I have one more question for you. Your profile says you are in zone 4b, which is similar to me (I am in the Minneapolis, MN area).

When does your Evans cherry ripen its fruit? I'm guessing mid August, perhaps?

I can't comment on the different cultivars, but my husband and I both enjoy eating sour cherries fresh. We are lucky enough to have several fruit orchards growing them fairly nearby, and we always make a point to go pick a bunch, some of which we eat fresh, and some of which we freeze with sugar for pies and other baked goods. They are much softer in texture than the sweet cherries from Washington, less sweet, of course, and more complex. We enjoy the pucker factor as well as the delicious, rich cherry flavor. In fact we much prefer them to sweet cherries. They also blend wonderfully with other fruits -- peach or rhubarb, for example -- in pies.

Is there an orchard in your area where you can buy some, feed them to your wife, and see if she likes them? Here they ripen in late June, probably a bit earlier where you are.

Jayco,

This is good to hear, as I went ahead and grabbed one at Lowe's a month or so ago. I don't mind sour and my toddler devoured all the tart 'Poorman" gooseberries last year, so I know she's in. If not it's at least pretty, small, and a bird pleaser.
Thanks for the encouragement.
JB

Wcap--We are probably in a similar temperature zone, though you get rain and humidity, I get wind and dust!

My main experience with pie cherries is with Early Richmond and the Evans, though we had a Montmorency many years ago which winter killed along with most of our other fruit trees in a very bad winter (The Early Richmond also winterkilled, but came back from the roots). The Early Richmond usually bloom in early May just before the apples and ripen in late June. They have a very sharp tartness which mellows as they ripen and the sugar increases. We have to fight the birds for them, so don't often get many, and definitely don't get ripe ones. The Evans blooms at the same time as the Early Richmonds, but it starts ripening in late July to early August. Since the tree is fairly small (about 6' now), I can cover it with netting and let the cherries fully ripen, so don't pick until mid August or so. The fruit doesn't drop, so I can pick when I have time. The few fruits with bird pecks have a tendency to dry out over several more weeks and are really tasty.

The only drawback I have found with the Evans is that I it has a bitter undertone until it is fully ripe--it is sour, but the bitterness also creeps into the background. By letting it fully ripen, the bitterness is gone and the sugar has gone way up to counter the sourness. By ripen, I mean leaving it on the tree until a week or two after it has turned fully red. I just taste one occasionally and when I no longer get the bitterness, then I pick. I think the bitterness is subjective as others in my family say they don't detect it at all. When I compare that to the Early Richmond, the ER is extremely sour when it starts to ripen, but I detect no bitterness (maybe I'm too puckered) unless it is still fully green colored. I always end up picking the ER while still at least partially yellow on the way to red, sometimes I get some that have turned fully red, but I know they aren't as sweet as they would be with more time. With the ER, from the first hint of yellow, I'm in a race with the birds and I can't net the trees.

I haven't had any problems with the Evans suckering and my tree has remained quite short. The only pruning I do is to remove crossing branches. The tree has been in the ground about 5 or 6 years now. Until last year, I watered it by hauling 2 1/2 gallon jugs full of water, and I would give it 5 to 10 gallons per week. Last year I got a waterline laid out, so it could get about 20 gal. before the well went dry and needed to recharge, and it has stayed fairly small and not too growthy, even with the additional water last year. I'm sure drouthiness stunted it a bit the first few years, but it seems to remain a relatively small tree, although I've seen pictures of trees that were about 12 feet tall, too.

I'm all for experimenting, which is why I got the Evans and am now trying a couple additional varieties. Just have fun!

Worst case scenario, if you don't enjoy them fresh, they are really amazing for baking. You cannot go wrong.

Here's what a local farmer taught me about pitting them:

Place a large colander over a bowl and have a separate bowl nearby. Remove the stem and use your fingers to squeeze out the pit into the colander -- this is really easy since the flesh is soft and the pit doesn't cling too much. The pits stay in the colander, the juices go into the bowl, and you put the cherries into the separate bowl. When you are done, simmer the cherry pits in the juice from the bowl, and use this juice as part of your freezing or canning liquid. Simmering the pits extracts a bit of almond-like flavor, and intensifies the cherry favor. MMMM!

Yes, the kernels inside the pits do contain a very small amount of cyanide, but I believe you'd have to eat many of the kernels for it to have a toxic effect. When you boil the pits, they do not open up, and so the kernel inside is not exposed. Also, when you use the finger-pitting method, quite a bit of pulp is left on the pits, and boiling them gets that, too. I feel quite confident it's completely safe, although clearly I'm invested in that viewpoint, having consumed many a delicious pie made with this method!

This entire post is really making me want to plant a sour cherry tree.

In fact, a few days ago I made a rhubarb-sour cherry pie with the first of the rhubarb, and some of the cherries my husband and I put up last year (we boiled the pits). Not to brag about my own baking, but man was it good! Maybe it was the combination of oxalic acid and cyanide that made it so good. ;)

I ended up buying an Evans Bali a few days ago, by the way. Nice looking little tree (about 6 feet tall sitting in its pot on my patio right now). Even has some flower buds, so maybe if I protect a few clusters of the cherries in mesh bags this year I'll even get to taste a dozen or so cherries this August.

My main concern at this point is whether I have gotten a tree that will end up growing too large for the space I have. The label says 15 - 20 feet tall and 12-15 feet wide, though other things I have read have suggested that this variety gets 10-15 feet tall. I guess I am figuring I will try to keep it pruned to a smaller height. We'll see how this goes. If it produces good fruit in abundance, I will probably be willing to indulge its space needs.

I know a person in the neighborhood with a Masabi cherry as it turns out, so maybe I can learn how to do grafting and get a branch of Masabi on my Evans Bali!

Thanks everyone for answering my questions.

Probably should start a new thread, but I'm here already, so...

Anyone out there get Crimson Passion from St Lawrence this spring? How has it done for you?

I got both Crimson Passion and Carmine Jewel and I threw them both into gallon pots and sank the pots into the ground (as the place I was going to plant them wasn't yet ready....late spring). Carmine Jewel broke bud and leaved out just fine, Crimson Passion, however, hasn't done a thing and doesn't seem to be doing anything. I know scratch it and see if its still green (and it was when lst I scratched it) but still nothing.

I did notice a really bad curve in the roots just under the root-collar the roots make a wicked curve forming almost a cirlce with a diameter of about 2 inches. I recall not being thrilled with the curve when I received the plant, but I figured it would likely be fine. Now I'm not so sure.

~Chills

not that anyone has responded or anything, but....

I was wrong, it was Carmine Jewel that didn't do anything (not Crimson Passion)

I scratched the dirt around the plant (stick) and while there is no longer any green to be found on the top of the stick, the root area is still white when scratched.

Am I better off cutting off the dead top of the stick and hoping it will sprout something from the roots or is it just as likely to do so if I just leave the top of the stick alone?

~Chills

Leave the stick alone for a while. If it is dead and the roots aren't, they may sprout and with the dead stick poking up you will recognize the sprouts by their location. Cut it off, and you might lose track of where it is? If the top is dead, it really doesn't make any difference whether you clip it or not. Like cutting a dead branch off a tree--the tree doesn't care either way.

It's the end of 2011 now...

1. I don't see the dwarf sour cherries from SK any longer in the St. Lawrence catalogue - did I miss it?
2. Does any one know of a source for the SK series, other than Gurney's offering of 'Carmine Jewel'?
3. How does Northar sour cherry compare to Evans - any updates in opinion?

I just had a bowl of Northstar cherries w/a few spoons of yogurt on top. The combo works fine for me!

PS - for those of you who have access to cherry 'stones' or pits - clean 'em good then sew them into a small cloth packet - or even an old sock or a mitten if you've lost the other half of a pair. You can microwave these for a minute or so, and they make a dandy 'handwarmer'. Cherry stones retain heat a long time.