Cherry Varieties That We Grow
Picking your own cherries is a fun outdoor activity the whole family can enjoy together. When you arrive at the orchard, you’re given buckets to fill with as many cherries as you’d like. As you stroll through the rows of cherry trees, you get to choose the biggest, reddest cherries you can find. The trees are usually short enough that even young children can reach the lower branches to pick fruit. After filling your buckets to the brim with fresh-picked cherries, the farm will weigh them and charge you by the pound. Then you get to take the cherries home to enjoy fresh, baked in pies, or preserved as jams. Picking your own cherries is an affordable way to get lots of fresh, locally grown fruit while spending time outdoors with loved ones.
Chelan
The medium-sized Chelan cherry is tasty when picked at its best tart flavor. Ripening 11 to 14 days ahead of Bing, Chelan is firm and attractive with mahogany red skin and medium to dark red flesh. The bloom is prolific and generally overlaps Bing. This variety has shown some tolerance to cracking.
Santina
'Santina' fruit is moderately large and firm with a highly attractive, lustrous skin, a flattened heart shape and medium-long stems.
Bing
Bing is a cultivar of the wild or sweet cherry (Prunus avium) that originated in the Pacific Northwest, in Milwaukie, Oregon, United States. The cultivar was created as a crossbred graft from the Black Republican cherry in 1875 by Oregon horticulturist Seth Lewelling and his Manchurian Chinese foreman Ah Bing, for whom the cultivar is named 'Bing' cherries are high in anti-oxidants.[5] A study by the United States Department of Agriculture suggests that fresh Bing cherries may help sufferers of arthritis and gout.
Rainier
'Rainier' title has become well established as a promise of unmatched flavor. Rainier is a large, yellow cherry with a red blush and light yellow flesh. Exquisitely flavored with high sugar levels, this is a premium niche variety that ripens just after Bing. The tree is vigorous, early bearing and very productive with excellent keeping qualities.
Lapins
'Lapins' is dark red sweet cherry from Canada. Large, firm, good flavor. Similar to Van in color, Bing in shape. Sometimes sold as 'Self-fertile Bing.' Ripens 4 days after Bing.
Skeena
'Skeena' was developed in British Columbia, it is a sweet, kidney-shaped cherry with a dark red-to-black skin and dark red flesh. The fruit is very firm and appears to have good tolerance to rain-induced cracking. The upright-top-spreading, self-fertile tree is precocious and consistently productive.
Staccato
'Staccato' is large heart-shaped black skin cherry that ripens approximately 1st week of August. Outstanding very late variety with excellent quality and flavor. Very firm and very tolerant to rain splitting.
Cristalina
Developed from Star and Van cultivars, Cristalina is heart-shaped and plump with dark red-to-black skin and firm, dark flesh. Sweet and moderately large on long thick stems. The tree is very productive with wide spreading branches. Pollenizer required: interfruitful with Bing, Rainier and Skeena Cristalina can be picked stemless very early with no damage to the skin, so of interest for stemless market. Mid season