Update from the cherry orchard - Final days of sweet cherry picking.  

Sweet cherry season wraps up this week.  As it so often is with cherry season it feels that we’re just getting into the swing of it and then it’s over.  

Morello sours are very slow to ripen this season and are only just starting to be ready, I expect they may be into New Year before they fully ripen. 

Ready packed cherry sales

Tomorrow will be our final pick for boxed sales as we are racing to get them off before the forecast heat. With extreme heat forecast and lots of bird pressure it’s now better for these cherries to be in the coolroom rather than on the trees.  

Mudgee region locals and visitors- If you’re looking for cherries for Christmas now is a good time to drop by the orchard to get them.  

Pick your own cherries

It's been great to see many visitors enjoy the orchard. The new kids picking pails have been really popular!

Pick your own sweet cherry season will open until Saturday.  

We have kept cherries in the orchard for pick your own over the next few days.  There is some extreme heat forecast for the next few days which may affect the remaining cherries.  We’re trying to scare the birds away but there are such huge flocks arriving to feast on our cherries.   

Still a great fun activity amongst the trees, especially if you come early before the heat. 

Morello sour cherries are now open for picking they are still a bit bitter to my taste I would wait another week or two. We expect the main season for them will be after Christmas, possibly into the New Year.

Cherry Express

Guy and Viktor are taking the Cherry Express to the Blue Mountains and Sydney tomorrow loaded with Simone varsity cherries.  

Online orders have now closed but there are some extras on board. If you’d like your name on one of those boxes (2kg $40 / 5kg $90) please text 0476 108 888.  

Pick-up points are:

Thursday 18 December - Blue Mountains / Galston / Blacktown                                                                      

Lithgow  8.30 -9.30 am * Gang Gang Gallery, 206 Main St Lithgow

Wentworth Falls 11.00 am-12.00 pm * Grand View Hotel Carpark, 174 Great Western Highway

Glenbrook * 12.30 - 1.00 pm * Tourist Info Centre Car Park

Galston * 2.30 - 3.15 pm * Galston                                              

Blacktown * 5.15 -6.00 pm * 116 Bungarribee Rd Blacktown (near Goodyear tyres)

Friday 19 December - Sydney                                                  

Northbridge * 8.00 - 9.30 am * 7 Euroka St Northbridge

Parramatta * 12-1:30pm * Belmore Park, North Parramatta

Around the orchard with stressed cherry trees

It’s been a busy month at the orchard with picking and packing, welcoming visitors and managing the orchard to help the trees through some stress conditions.   

Every cherry season brings its own challenges. This one saw some extreme swings in temperatures from very cold (5degC) nights through to heatwave days. We also provided a feeding ground for huge flocks of musk lorikeets, cockatoos, magpies, crows and the pest Indian miner birds. The magpies and crows take the fruit away whilst the lorikeets simply peck at whole bunches. Beautiful birds but oh so damaging.  We’re out driving around and walking and clapping to scare them off before they settle.  Luckily they focus on the tops, leaving good fruit lower in the trees. Next season we'll need to consider investing in netting.

Mudgee and region has experienced a very dry spring and early summer. Irrigation keeps our trees watered but it doesn’t water the interrow which our trees also draw from. November frosts and cold December nights have swung to heatwave days and hot winds which really stressed the trees (and us!).  Interestingly, cherry trees shut down in extreme heat - even if they have plenty of water the sapflow just stops and the stressed, wilted trees sometimes draw back sugars and moisture from their fruit.  Thankfully the nights stayed cool - cooler nights help the fruit to recover.    

These were key contributors to our somewhat smaller fruit size this year – not small but not huge like last season.  I’d invested heavily in some specialised nutritional inputs to feed and grow the cherries and help the trees manage heat stress.  The season showed just how important well-timed rain is early season to fill the soil profile for good fruit size.  The trees responded really well to the rain that came (usually we’d be concerned about splitting from rain during harvest but the soil was like a dry sponge soaking up that rain).  The leaves perked up, trees looked lush and the fruit swelled in size until the heat hit again.

We also had very patchy and uneven fruit set, which was common across cherry regions this year - heavily cropped trees look beautiful but are not ideal as they over achieve with more fruit than they can feed to a good size. It's a balance as trees with not much fruit will grow a lot of leaf, and are slow to pick.

The cherries we pick and sell are quality graded but not size graded. This means you get the natural mix of cherries from the tree/s that your box came from - and the pairs and triples that make it such fun. We do take out the smaller cherries to put aside for pickling.

There has been some extreme weather around Mudgee. We are very fortunate to have narrowly missed a hail storm as I watched the black cloud pass just around us last week, with golf ball size hail just a kilometre away and hitting Mudgee town. That would have called a halt to cherry season.   

A constant companion this season have been firebombing helicopters and spray planes overhead on their routes to fighting various bushfires around the region.  With the orchard being right beside the airport we’ve had a prime view of just how busy they’ve been to contain these fires. We hope for some good rain for Christmas so the fire crews and the property owners in affected areas can have a break.

Cherry Thanks 

Thank-you for your support of our family farm this season. We look forward to seeing you over the next week or next season. 

We are very grateful to our family and our team of twenty seasonal staff who have worked hard to bring cherries to you this season.   

Cherry Christmas!

Ingrid Roth

Cherry Grower

Roth Family Orchard

108 Eurunderee Lane Mudgee