Today Ben and I set out for another adventure in search of more sweet cherries. When we asked our Creekside farmer Josh for recommendations for “pick your own” cherry orchards, he recommended Kuntryside Orchard. We weren’t sure where we were going or what we would find (they don’t really have a website), but we put the address in our GPS, grabbed a bucket for picking, and ventured out.
I LOVE THIS PLACE!!! Seriously. Gorgeous, dark, sweet cherries…beautiful, quiet orchards…and pretty much the nicest people ever. We weren’t sure where we were going, so we followed the signs and went up to a little farm stand. The owner (?) pre-weighed our empty bucket and told us we could park closer to the 4 rows of cherry trees. She recommended climbing the ladders because the best cherries were up high.
No, literally, we parked the Mini in the middle of the orchard and started looking for a good place to pick. It was easy to find a good place… there were TONS of cherries. We did have to climb, though.
Looking up and down the rows of cherry trees and sporadically placed wooden ladders, I totally felt like I could just sit and stay there for a long time.
My personal biggest challenge? Climbing the ladders while holding the bucket, then picking cherries and getting them into the bucket while on the ladder. Oh, and climbing down with the bucket, of course. A bag I could hang over my arm might be a better choice next time. We only took one bucket, so we took turns.
(Um, for real, who goes cherry picking in FLIP FLOPS??!) Someday I’ll learn.
When we were done picking, we drove the bucket back over to the barn to get our cherries weighed: right around 6 pounds. Although Kuntryside isn’t offering “pick your own” for sour (pie) cherries this year, they did have some pints for sale in the farm stand. We bought 2 pints of those, plus a beautiful candy onion. (Don’t worry, Creekside, if you’re reading: I know you guys had candy onions at your farm stand last year, and I’m willing to bet we might get candy onions in our CSA share. I promise I’m not cheating on your candy onions. We just don’t have any of yours yet, and these smelled and looked so good, and we were grilling tonight!) ;)
So…now I get to decide what to do with 2 pints of sour cherries (I’m thinking pie) and 6 pounds of sweet cherries. I have ideas, but I’m open to new ones. Any recipes you would all recommend? If so, leave a comment!
csa 4 dinner 