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Cherries Are Ripe For The Pickin' In The North Fork

bing cherries, cherry
Laura Palmisano

The summer fruit harvest season has started in western Colorado. Cherries are usually the first fruit ready for picking in the North Fork Valley.

Jeff Schwartz, the owner of Delicious Orchards in Hotchkiss, said his cherry chop this year is light.

"Five to seven percent of the cherries made it through the spring freeze," he said "The cherries are probably four to five days away from [being ready] to pick.”

cherry tree, orchard
Credit Laura Palmisano
Cherry trees at Delicious Orchards.

Schwartz said his one and a half acres of cherry trees can produce up t0 20,000 pounds of fruit. 

He'd consider himself lucky if he was able to harvest 2,000 pounds this year, he said.  

"We are fighting the freeze in early spring and then we have to figure out how to outwit the birds [during harvest time]," Schwartz said. 

After cherries, apricots are the next fruit ready to be harvested in the North Fork Valley. Peaches, nectarines, plums, and pears are harvested in late summer. Apples are ripe in the fall.

Schwartz said his peach crop will also be light this year.

“This winter we lost about 80 percent of our peach crop due to a winter freeze," he said.  

bing cherries, cherry
Credit Laura Palmisano
The inside of a ripe Bing cherry.

If you want to buy local produce, farmers markets on the Western Slope are now stocking Colorado-grown cherries.  

Laura joined KVNF in 2014. She was the news director for two years and now works as a freelance reporter covering Colorado's Western Slope. Laura is an award-winning journalist with work recognized by the Society of Professional Journalists, Colorado Broadcasters Association, and RTDNA. In 2015, she was a fellow for the Institute for Justice & Journalism. Her fellowship project, a three-part series on the Karen refugee community in Delta, Colorado, received a regional Edward R. Murrow Award.
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