Good evening,

🍒 🍒 🍒 🍒. Cherry time is here!

It was wonderful to see many visitors enjoying the orchard and our cherries today, it's exciting for cherry season to be underway.

Cherry availability this week are the Rons, Vans, Black Star and Samba varieties.

At the orchard: Pick Your Own and Farm Gate sales open daily

Now open every morning from 7:30am.

Pick your own open until 11am - We have a special offer after the rain - pick 10kg and get an extra kg free. If planning a visit we do suggest to try to come soon as the weather is very unpredictable. Bring a raincoat as the trees may be wet.

First grade boxes ready packed for sale daily until sold out.

Second grade cherries are available at a heavily discounted price suitable for cooking, jams, sauce, freezing, etc.

Northwest this Wednesday, small delivery drop

Narrabri - Craddock's Butchery

Gunnedah - Streater Family Butchery

Coolah - Black Stump Butchery

Cherry Express runs

We are working towards the following cherry delivery runs.

The season is changing rapidly so this may change.

Pre-orders can be emailed to: mudgeecherries@gmail.com, please advise number of boxes (1kg, 2kg, 5kg) and pick up location preference. Further details to follow once we have estimated numbers.

Pricing: $20/1kg giftbox, $38/2kg, $80/5kg box.

North West

• Wednesday 11 Dec
• Mullaley, Gunnedah, Boggabri, Narrabri, Moree

Hunter

• Friday 13 Dec
• Morpeth, Kuri Kuri, Scone

Blue Mountains / Parramatta

• Sunday 15 Dec TBC
• Katoomba, Springwood, Glenbrook, North Parramatta

Some beautiful, big white cherries today...

A week of challenging weather

This week's weather has been a cherry growers' nightmare. Initially forecast for a cool change which was ideal for the cherries we instead saw a 3 day heatwave, with hot nights giving the cherries little recovery time. The heat has sped up colouring but cherry trees tend to shutdown in the heat, so the sugars were very slow to move into the fruit. We managed to dodge some days of the forecast rain but Saturday there was no escape from that widepsread long, wet day. Our Rons variety cherries were looking the best they ever have, just needing another day or two of mild weather to sweeten up beautifully. They suffered badly from rain, with around 60% being split. Thankful for some regular customers who came out to buy some of those seconds for preserving. I know have a freezer full available.

So far the Samba and Simone Cherries are still looking good. We put out some expensive rain protectant sprays on the Simone cherries before the rain, and followed up with Calcium after the rain to help dry the fruit. If the weather can become kinder the Simones are set to be a beautiful crop. Just hoping the big rain now forecast for Tuesday goes around us.

The line from the song "The Gambler" keeps running through my mind as I make decisions about extra sprays, picking and schedules - now just hoping I can somehow cover costs for the season. "You have to Know when to hold em, Know when to fold em, know when to walk away, know when to run". I can't help but throw more at this big beautiful crop of cherries and hope mother nature can be much kinder for the next fortnight.

Cooking with cherries

With loads of seconds available at a very economical price, it's a great time to think about the many different things you can cook with cherries.

Yesterday I added some pitted cherries (the seconds of the superb Sambas) with chopped rhubarb into the slow cooker with a little sugar for a very easy compote to top ice-cream, breakfast or make a crumble.

Cherries are also great in savoury foods.

Balsamic Cherry Sauce is one of my favourites, ideal with the Christmas turkey or a lamb snag. This recipe from Curtis Stone is a winner.

Hoping we can share these beautiful cherries with your over the next two weeks.

Cherry Cheers

Ingrid Roth

Cherry Grower

Roth Family Orchard

Mudgee