I have grown North Star cherries for many years. This year my cherry set a light crop due to late frosts. some of the cherries expanded to full size and some stayed small, yellowed up and dropped off a week or so ago. Perhaps your tree did the same? The remaining cherries I have are just getting a pink blush so I sprayed the last time for cherry fruit fly and will net the tree asap in the next few days. You mention a dark dimple on the fruit? I wonder if you have plum curculio or cherry fruit fly larvae in the fruit? You did not mention if you sprayed the crop or not with insecticide this spring? I would cut some of those fruits with the dark spots and check for laarvae from the above insects mentioned. If my entomogy is correct, the fruit fly will only lay one egg per cherry (large white larvae) while the curculio can have multiple larvae per fruit.

Hi, Galcho, don't mind at all. 1) The cover -- nothing special, it was some old sheer window curtains sown together. 2) Pruning -- I've never really had to prune it, other than possibly when it first came to shape it up (I can't remember, but generally most any new tree needs a little nip here and there). It is naturally dwarf, I didn't do anything to keep it so small. 3) Yes, hopefully next year, you'll get a better crop. 4) Fertilizer -- yes, a couple times a year in the spring, with an all purpose dry fertilizer -- I think this year, it was a 12-12-12. The tree is planted right at the edge of my vegetable garden, so it gets what the garden gets. Also, I mulch around it with a lot of compost, and I throw the old corn stalks down around the base of the trees in the fall - it's on the end of a row of trees, mostly peaches, the cherry, and a 5 in 1 tree that has apricots, peaches, nectarines, and two kinds of plums.

OK, I will throw in my $0.02. Yes, get the peach trees. Buy a dwarf so you can reach around the tree more easily. A full sized tree will be bigger than you want to deal with. What the others have said about removing fruit is a very real issue with a peach. If you don't do that you get TONS of too small fruit. Thin the fruits and you get much better results. One warning. If you don't pick the peaches, but let them fall off the tree and rot, you'll have more yellow jackets under that tree than you ever knew existed. Growing up outside of Philadelphia the next door neighbors had two full sized peach trees in their front yard which they never thinned and rarely picked. In August it was unsafe to walk in their front yard because of all the yellow jackets feasting upon the rotting fruit under those trees. Peaches and cherries are both in the genus "Prunus". The plants in that genus are subject to lots of pests (The plants don't devote many resources to protecting themselves. Instead they devote lots of resources to making fruit, so this is just the way things are and you have to reconcile yourself to this if you want to grow your own.) Sweet cherries and sour ("pie") cherries are two different species of "Prunus". Sweet cherries (mostly, with a couple of exceptions) require two different varieties near each other in order to make fruit because they (mostly) won't self-pollinate. None of that is true of sour cherries. One sour cherry tree standing by itself will make fruit. By & large sweet cherries are big trees. If you don't by a grafted, dwarf sweet cherry you'll someday have a tree that will be 20'-30' tall if it's happy. That's not so true of pie cherries, which are often naturally small trees (Of course, you may find that even one sour cherry produces more fruit than you want to deal with. That will depend upon your interest in cooking. Cherries are only ripe for a very short season, so you have to make sure you have time to do something with the cherries when the tree is ripe. Otherwise you've missed the point for a whole year. Both species of cherries also have a lot of pests, although probably not quite as many as peaches have. Oh! One final thought regarding cherries. THE BIRDS ARE FIENDS FOR CHERRIES! They usually eat the fruit while it's ripening, but before it's fully ripe, so you have to contend with the birds, too. Not all birds of course, but the fruit eating ones, eg., robins, starlings, mockingbirds, and catbirds. Don't buy those owl decoys. Waste of money. You'll probably soon decide that the only real way to keep some of the cherries for yourself is to cover the tree with netting just before the cherries start getting color. This is yet another BIG reason for making sure you buy a dwarf cherry! (As I said, the most commonly available pie cherries are naturally small, but if you want sweet cherries you will have to buy a dwarfed tree. You may only be able to find "semi-dwarf" sweet cherries. Even so, they will be smaller trees than the full sized ones will be. I've also read before that for sweet cherries, the birds are less interested in the "yellow" varities (like Rainier) than they are in the red ones. I have no personal experience with that.)

The cherries in the freezer are already pitted. I sat down in front of the tv last night and just pitted away. I think I am going to just pit the apricots and dip them in some vitamen C tablet disolved in water and then just freeze. I may take some and roast in the oven until tender and go ahead and puree and freeze in ice cube trays. Funny story, Rhiannon as I have mentioned will eat any and all veggies and fruits she started when she was less than a year old and she didn't even have teeth yet. She takes her little bucket out and picks spinach and green beans and eats them just like that. Also loves rhubarb and any and all fruits. Peyton who just turned 3 finally will eat carrots, celery and apples and that is about it, she has been exposed to the same things and just won't eat veggies and fruits. For breakfast, Hayden had a bowl of quarted fresh apricots. I was picking cherries from a smaller cherry tree and some branches where down to the ground, and all of a sudden I turned around and saw that Hayden was picking and eating cherries out of the tree. He also loves squash and beans, and all other fruits. It is funny that all 3 were exposed to the same things but Peyton is so picky and Hayden was eating fresh fruit at 9 months. I know that it helped that I make all my own baby food. Some of the apricots will be made into puree for the new baby and I plan on defrosting some cherries to make into puree too. I freeze in ice cube trays and then transfer to large ziplock bags and it is so easy. Not to mention so much more healthy than commercial baby food. when they are old enough I use one of my 4 baby food grinders and grind up what ever we are having for supper. Well should get to pitting the apricots. I may go and get some more this afternoon. The gentleman said to take as many as I want. I also have some green beans to turn into baby food, I made a huge batch for Hayden's birthday and have plenty of left overs, I picked yesterday and will need to pick again tomorrow. Stacie girlsingardens