Cherry harvest season will start this Thursday at Roth Family Orchard Mudgee 🍒 🍒 🍒 🍒 🍒 🍒 🍒

Our earliest cherry varieties are ready.

All going well, these Merchant cherries will be picked and packed (by us not the birds!) and available for sale from the old church on the orchard from lunchtime each day until sold out.

It’s such an exciting time in the orchard! As our main varieties of cherries turn red they are so beautiful, like trees covered in little Christmas ornaments. The cherries look so abundant now which is so wonderful to see.

As the cherries ripen they turn darker and hide in amongst the leaves again. A cherry specialist once told me – if you stand looking down a row of Simone cherries and can see them, they’re not ripe yet. Wait a few more days for them to darken and sweeten. This red stage is so amazing to look at, especially with that wind blowing the leaves aside.

The cherries are sizing up beautifully, responding well to lots of feeding and watering. Trees carrying a lighter crop have more chance to grow the cherries they have.

It's exciting, and a little anxious, to be back in the swing of a cherry season. This week we've been busy cleaning down and sanitising our packing line and equipment which had stood silent for two years. Magically it all runs - even the coolrooms (they are very temperamental things!).

Storms

The cherries survived - yay!

That wild storm front hit Sunday night, it was a bit crazy for a while there but the rain came down so hard and fast it seems to have rushed away and thankfully the cherries survived it. Very happy to see some gentler breezes to dry the fruit before the sun came out. Hoping you were safe in that wild weather.

Birds are also abundant so we’re keeping very busy in the orchard, getting the many jobs done and scaring off the birds (until I turn the other way!).

Pick Your Own

Our merchant cherries are just two rows of trees at the far end of the orchard so we won’t open for pick your own just yet.

Bookings are now open online for 7-8 December and 12-16 December, more dates will be added once we know what the season brings and can be sure to have ripe cherries. Morello sour cherries will be latest to ripen.

Details are in the booking link.

Cherry Express

Cherry runs are back this season! Dates will depend on the cherries but based on your queries to date we expect from to have a runs from around 12-20 December to:

• North West (Narrabri, Gunnedah, Moree)
• Thallon (book through Thallon School)
• Sydney & Blue Mountains
• Scone / Newcastle if we have enough interest.

We'll send out a booking for these once we know dates.

If you are interested in a larger order (great corporate or family Christmas gifts!) in one of these regions, please get in touch and we'll aim to work these into the delivery runs.

Cherry recipes

We have loved all the cherry recipes people have shared with us over the years with our sweet and tart cherries. One day I’ll gather them all together. Please feel free to email or post and tag us with you favourite cherry recipes so we can share them!

Meantime the Instagram page NorthWestCherries from Washington State has some great cherry inspiration.

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Cherry Cheers

Ingrid Roth