Jollyrd: Watch your tree's growth to gauge whether you need to fertilize. If you are getting very little new growth each year (like a couple inches or less) and water or disease aren't the reasons, then you could add some fertilizer. However, if you have decent soil and have mulched, you really shouldn't need any fertilizer. I rarely fertilize my cherries, maybe once every 5 to 10 years is all and that is because I get paranoid that they could be doing more and throw some fertilizer on them. It has never made a difference. Hoosier: Most if not all pie cherries are self fruitful, so you only need one tree. I have both a Northstar and an Evans/Bali tree. I have developed a strong preference for the Evans cherry. It is late to ripen, mid August for me, while the Northstar ripens in July and my Early Richmond cherries ripen in late June/early July. I really like the Evans for a number of reasons. It sets fruit prolifically. Last year I got about 25 lbs. from the one tree, which is just over 6 feet tall, and because it has so much fruit close together, picking is very efficient. It just seems to be absolutely loaded with cherries every year. The Evans also has a sweeter cherry than the Northstar, and the cherries are quite a bit larger. The one drawback I've found to the Evans is that the cherries are slightly astringent to my taste until they are dead ripe when it goes away. That means that while they turn bright red about the first of August, I net them and wait a couple weeks before picking. I'm sure this also helps increase the sugar content. When fully ripe, they have a wonderful cherry flavor, and if dried, are really very sweet. Perhaps someone in a more disease prone area can add their experience with Evans regarding diseases such as brown rot. I understand from others on this forum that brown rot hits later maturing fruits much more than early ones, so the later ripening of the Evans might make it more prone to brown rot if it is a problem in your area. The attached link is a picture I took of the Evans 2 years ago. Here is a link that might be useful:

For freezing cherries, I wash, then pit the cherries with a crank cherry pitter. It crushes the fruit, but then your pies or cobblers or sauces are entirely cherry rather than a few whole cherries with lots of filler around them and you can go through a gallon of cherries in just a few minutes. Hand pitting individually is way too time consuming. The pitted cherries are placed in a quart plastic container or a bag, then frozen. I don't add any sugar when freezing, though you can. Just don't know how they will be used, so don't add sugar until cooking later. A quart of frozen cherries is about right for making a pie. When cooking the cherries later, I usually reduce the sugar by 1/4 to 1/2, depending on just how tart the cherries are--I don't like syrupy sweet cherry pie and prefer a sweetened pie that still has some of the tartness of the cherry--much more flavor, and you don't get a stomach ache from all the sugar so you can eat more! Also, Minute Tapioca is a great way to thicken the cherry juice. There is a recipe on the box, just reduce the sugar. A quick version is 4 cups frozen, pitted cherries in their own juice, 3/4 cups sugar, 2 tablespoons tapioca, a tablespoon of butter, and 3 or 4 drops of almond extract. Another great way to thicken the cherry juice when making toppings is to add a tablespoon or two of corn starch with your sugar and cook. When the corn starch thickens, the juice will turn clear. As long as you warn everyone, for a topping you can freeze the cherries whole, then make sauce, and people can just spit out the pits.

I grow Northstar. It is a bit tart for for fresh eating although I do eat some fresh. The trick for me is to let them ripen until purple. Do not pick when red. Perhaps too tart for fresh eating for most people. I cook with most of them. I sampled Balaton at my friend's commercial orchard and agree is is fantastic for fresh eating. I was so thrilled that I purchased my own tree bare-root the following spring. It is now 5 years old and I have yet to get a cherry off of it. The tree runted out at 4' and just gets wider but not taller. This year it flowered but a heavy spring frost wiped out this year's crop. I will give it another year, but I cannot get the tree to bear. It has only sparsely flowered the past 3 years. I heard they are shy bearing in youth and are best cross pllinated. With that in mind, I planted a mesabi cherry nearby. I think it is a rootstock issue as the tree is healthy. The source I bought it from did not disclose the rootstock used. It does not grow in size like the Balaton at my friend's orchard. His were 12' tall. My family likes Montmorency as well. They can be eaten fresh if picked late in the season but are not quite as sweet as Balaton. Big issue is Montmorency gets way too large to net for bird control. Has anyone tried growing Montmorency on Gisela 5? I see raintree offers is on Gisela 5. I have been tempted to try one to see if it will stay smaller than the 18' height I see at the commercial cherry orchards in my state (WI) in the Door County area. I have not yet tasted Danube or Jubileum but commercially I hear Balaton was the best out of these 3 introductions from Hungary. Can anyone comment on the sweetness of Danube and Jubileum compared to Balaton?

We have a North-star sour cherry on its own root and it is doing quit well. The North-star does well from zone 2 -zone 8 and does well in AHS zones 2-8. It grows to 8 -10 feet. They grow fast and produce boo-coops of cherries in a few years. Both Gisela and Krymsk rootstock have many more insect and disease problems. Not only are the north-star's own roots better but there is no graft line to fail. plant a mulberry. Birds eat mulberries before they will even look at a cherry.