My little Carmine Jewel is getting big and is a very happy camper :) He was too young to bloom this past spring, but he's really growing very, very well. No problems at all. I don't know how blooming and fruiting will go yet, but the plant itself seemed to take last summer's heat just great and is taking off this year as well as I could have imagined.

Meredith. Your good start growing Carmine Jewel is encouraging to me. I will start shopping for a good deal on a few plants. Thanks, Bill

I swear mine have grown almost ZERO since i potted them up 2 months ago ...do these things take awhile to get going? They are very healthy green looking. They were very small when i got them.

Mine did take a bit to get going too, this 2nd year it's growing well. I would try Carmine over Crimson, it is a much more adaptable plant. I had one Crimson and it died. Both my Carmine Jewells lived under the same terrible conditions. No growth at all last year. I dug them up and moved them to pots this spring. They took off! I also moved them from my cottage to the city where they get a lot more sun.
The Crimson passed unable to bear the bad condtions. Carmine is a remarkable plant. It will be fine I bet. Hold on Frank, it should be fine. Treat it like a tree, not a shrub, no excess fertilizer, don't over water etc.
Mine in pots are growing if Fafard potting mix which is much like 5-1-1, more like 3-1-1.

Mine grew more slowly last year for sure. I also had mine potted all last year, because the plant I got was so small that a pot was safer (animals and such). My plant was about 6" tall, I think, with a small little rootball.

I planted in-ground in the winter while dormant, and this year the growth has been really impressive :) Now it's slowed again in the heat, but that spring flush of growth probably tripled/quadrupled its size.

I planted mine on a mound for drainage, and it's in full sun all day (so quite hot in the summer). I do water pretty often in the heat for a fruit 'tree', but that's because I know the mound dries totally out quickly and the roots couldn't be very deep yet. As it ages, I'll let it go longer between waterings.

I was worried about the crazy heat, but CJ has taken it very well so far. Mine will get some afternoon shade later on, because trees behind it will grow tall enough for that within a few years.

Mine is in a pot sitting on a hot driveway with pretty much all day sun...so i water as much as the other plants. I just wasn't sure what was going on. I figure its still in a little shock because it was such a tiny little pot it came in. I'll look forward to next year getting a bunch of growth. I"m too use to peaches gaining 5 feet + in one summer!

I got one in early may that I have in a small pot, it was about 6-7" and didn't do anything for almost a month but all of a sudden the last 2 weeks or so it has put on a couple inches of growth and is throwing out leaves left and right on the existing stems. I started using some of that dyna grow stuff (I think people like the foliage pro, I bought the grow version by mistake) recently too that a lot of people use on here so I don't know if that's what jump started it or if it took some time to acclimate.

It is one hardy little tree. i see why it was the first to make it here. I will buy the whole series in a few years, but these two should be good enough. I want it in a pot as I want to take it with me when I move, I'm leaving enough trees behind. I'm not moving till 2017 or 2018.
It's a bummer in a way, having to leave established producing plants just to start over. It's about retirement and all. My kids are gone, almost retired etc. I want to down size the house and up size the yard! I'm going to take as many plants as possible, but the trees are staying. I'll take all the brambles and such, make tip rooted plants and take suckers from the raspberries.
Eventually I will put it in the ground.

Thanks for all the post. I will be adding a few to my back yard. Do the cherries taste more like sweet or sour cherries? I'm OK with either.

I guess the longer you leave them on, the sweeter they get. They have higher brix than most sour, but less than sweets. Carmine is dark in color. Some of the others in the Romance series have higher brix than Carmine. I forget which ones? I want them all!!

I have one of each in zone 7b (Raleigh, NC) and they are doing fine. Still too young to fruit but maybe next year. Nothing seems to bother them. Carmine Jewel seems more robust than Crimson Passion. I have them beside a row of the other bush cherry - Jan, Joel, and Joy, and they suffer with some sort of disease. It doesn't kill them but it messes up the appearance of the fruit (which taste like wild plums to me). I got mine from St. Lawrence up in upstate NY.

>>They have higher brix than most sour, but less than sweetsYes and no,..was eating sweet cherries today, brix was 13 on average,..which correlates to be the right number.
Bush cherries can read higher,..up the 20 or more.

>>Do the cherries taste more like sweet or sour cherries?Still taste like sour cherries because of high acid content.

"'Yes and no,..was eating sweet cherries today, brix was 13 on average"

That's not very high for a sweet.
Here's what fruitnut says about cherry brix

Here is a link that might be useful: Rainier cherry brix vs harvest date

This post was edited by Drew51 on Sun, Jun 22, 14 at 6:52

Whether a person likes a sweet or sour fruit varies from person to person. My favorites tend to taste both sweet and sour at the same time. I also enjoy green plums and the tartness of crab-apples. Carmine Jewel just might be an excellent tasting fruit to me.

It will be interesting to see how these cherries do in warmer climes. They were developed in Saskatoon, which I think is zone 2. I'm at the same latitude, but 300 miles to the west, in zone 3. Now in their 4th year in the ground for me, they grow well but I feel they would really be best suited to a zone or two warmer. For example, last fall they didn't start to drop their leaves until late-October, which is 2-3 weeks after native trees and shrubs here. And that's with giving them no fertilizer and no summer watering, so as to encourage them to ripen their summer's growth early and go dormant as soon as possible.

In 2012, we had the earliest winter I have ever seen here, with snow arriving to stay on October 20... my Romance cherries got frozen with almost a full leaf cover still on them, and they didn't lose most of those leaves until the following spring. No die back at all in spring, but still it seems like they would have been better off in a warmer zone where they could harden up better for winter.

As for fruit set, well they have only produced a few cherries thus far, from all 4 bushes combined (most from Cupid, a couple from Carmine Jewel, none from Juliet or Romeo). This summer (year 4) it is looking like there may be at least a few cherries from all 4 bushes, at least if the fruit-gods are merciful from now to harvest.

As for taste, in my limited experience, well yes, these are definitely tart cherries, regardless of their brix. That's because they have the acidity that causes the sourness of tart cherries, and no amount of sugar can change that. Still, I find them meatier (less watery) and tastier than standard tart cherries that I have tasted. So perhaps okay to eat directly as a snack, though you would never mistake them for sweet cherries.

I'm a fan of high acid fruits like Indian Free peach or Arctic Glo and Arctic Jay nectarines. These sound fantastic to me.

The carmine Jewel's had a nice crop in zone 5 this year. the fruit is soft when its ripe and as mentioned black. They taste sweeter than any sour cherries we have tried.

>>That's not very high for a sweet.
Here's what fruitnut says about cherry brixWell,..these early US Cherries we get are not very sweet but
show higher average then this chart,..showing average at 10.6

All UOS bush cherries show higher brix then any other sour cherries.

Here is a link that might be useful: Average Brix Values and Dominant Acids of Produce

I guess I judge cherries by what we produce, I never seen a sweet under 19. 25 is more like what we produce here. Search for brix in this document. The control is at 20 brix. We start there as a bad cherry.

http://www.hrt.msu.edu/faculty/langg/Sweet_Cherry_Photosynthesis_Research.html

Fruitnut's results are typical here

http://curezone.org/forums/am.asp?i=1148632

.

I guess it depends what farm you get you cherries at!
http://fruitsmart.com/PDFs/TechnicalForms/SSBrixChart.pdf

I agree the averages they show are low, but as I said I have just not ever seen any cherries that low. I can't imagine how bad a sweet is at 10.

This post was edited by Drew51 on Mon, Jun 23, 14 at 1:51

The first pix was just a close up of the cherries in the colander.

Here's one of the cherries and pits after pitting. The Juice running down my hand to my wrist looked like I just butchered the fatted calf...

{{gwi:109826}}

The end result

{{gwi:109827}}

Yum, I'm coming over for pie!! :)

Thanks for all the post. You cannot get these unbiased opinions from the tree sellers. Your the best. Bill

Wow! Really nice looking cherries. Mine are just bigger than a pea. I have maybe 30 of them and 12 Crimson passion FRUIT!
Maybe a bunch next year!

Don; I wish I could send you a piece. I've planted two CJ's at a friends house, and two more at a Nephew's and on my recommendation my Brother-In Law has planted four. So we're taking them all a piece so they can see what kind of pie their CJ's will make in a couple years.

Noogy; I planted two Crimson Passion this year and they've tripled in size already. I'm real happy with how they've adapted because Bernis at Honeyberry USA told me that the CP's were a tad harder to get going than CJ's. I can't hardly wait to taste one, they're supposed to be bigger and sweeter.

But I must say, I can't say enough about the size and shape the plants from Honeyberry USA come in at.

All the ones I've gotten from them are real nice, and the ones from Michigan Bulb that were like really small are just not doing anything. It's like they're alive but nothing beyond that - neither the pair I bought, nor the ones my BIL bought.

So I think for a few dollars more it's worth it to me to get a little bigger plantings. I wish all mine would have been bigger from the start.

Now I'm hungry for cherry pie! My cherries didn't even flower. I have a bing that's getting big for a baby tree. It's ten foot tall and eight foot wide. I have been cutting the leaders back too so I hope next year's the year. The most I've got from it was four cherries last year. The rest of my trees are six to eight foot tall. I have four sweets and one sour.

i will bring the ice cream

I hear ya Iowajer,
If I had the money I'd buy all of mine from HBUSA, but I alreadyhave 5 big CJ's and 3 CP's that are just beginning to produce, 3 2yr plants, and 35 new ones from Michigan Bulb. Tiny little things...
I've hit them with kelp, mycorhizal fungus and urea. Push push push. Enjoy your pie, and many more!

I knew you hit that bargain sale (like $6 ea., or something if I recall) And I'd have done the same thing had I known about that one-day sale in time.

A guy could justify having a batch around all potted up that way.

But with my relation only wanting a couple at a time at each place, it just made sense to go bigger for that small number.

My wife has been raving about that pie, says she truly believes they ARE a gourmet cherry!