Last Chance to Order Tart Cherries! Plus U-Pick and Orchard Updates

Hi everyone,

Lots of topics to hit, so let’s get right to it.

First up–Cherries. This is your last chance to order tart cherries for the year. The deadline is tomorrow at noon. I don’t want to be too repetitive, and I’ve already made posts about cherries, so here is the link to the info: https://rittmanorchards.com/tart-cherry-orders/ . If you have any issues ordering online, call us  (330-925-4152) and you can place your order that way. All cherries ordered at this point will be available on the 25th.

If you previously placed your order for the earlier pickup on the 18th, we’ll be getting your cherries by late afternoon tomorrow, so anytime on Saturday is fine to come get them. Or Sunday, if you can’t make it on Saturday. Just don’t wait too long, as even refrigerated, they will spoil since they don’t have any preservatives.

U-Pick –There are still quite a few good blueberries out there and some yet to ripen still. You may have to search a little, and walk down the rows a ways, but you can find some really nice ones. The red raspberries are into the latest varieties that we have, and even those are a little past peak. There’s still a lot of good berries, but there won’t be for much longer. There’s nothing left in the early raspberries close to the strawberry patch, the best berries now are behind our shop building (where the u-pick shed is stationed now). The black raspberries are just about over at this point. And the strawberries have been over for a little while already. We’ll be open for picking tomorrow and Saturday 9-5 and Sunday 11-5.

Orchard Updates – If anyone has any pull with Mother Nature and can get us some rain, that would be really, really nice. Today seems to have been our best chance for any this week, and it all missed us again…we got 0.01 inch. We haven’t gotten anything significant for about a month. The property is too large for our well to reach everything, so we can’t irrigate most of what we grow. Usually that’s ok (not optimal, but ok). This year is rough. We’ve been hauling all the water we can around to the various vegetable patches daily. The vegetables have shallower roots than than most of the fruit that we grow, but we’re starting to get some stress in some of the fruit crops now, too. We’re going to have to double up our efforts to get to as much as possible.

Other than no rain, where do we stand on things? Well, as you can see from the photo above, garlic harvest is complete. That’s about half of it in the photo. There was a second trailer that was just as stacked.

We also picked the Lodi apples a couple of days ago. We’ve got a decent amount left, but they’re going fast. I had all of a bushel of Transparent this year on my replanted baby trees. I’m hoping for exponentially more every year for the next several years after this. In the next week or so, we’ll start picking our Pristine apples. I think that’s the only other apple until early August.

Most of our earliest peaches got major frost damage this spring and had almost no crop. But sometime within the next week or so, we’ll be getting into our Brightstar and Flamin’ Fury Magic 8-Ball. Those two both have a pretty good crop. I’ll get posts and another newsletter out when we have a good amount of our own peaches.

Anyway, the bulk of the work around the farm right now is weeding and watering, with some berry picking and apple thinning thrown in. As a farming friend of mine told me the other day, those of us who do this must all be a little crazy.

That’s it from me for now. Have a good night and stay safe out there.

3 thoughts on “Last Chance to Order Tart Cherries! Plus U-Pick and Orchard Updates

  1. Kathy Keller says:

    Farming is not easy and relies so much on Mother Nature,, I greatly appreciate those who do it to provide us with delicious, fresh food. Thank you!

    I noticed no mention os sweet corn or blackberries. Sounds like I may have missed the opportunity to get Lodi or transparent apples. Thanks again. Everything that has been delivered has been excellent!

  2. Joan C Poirrier says:

    I missed ordering the cherries again this year. I know you emailed me a couple of times I was just super busy with canning. If you have any buckets if someone has not picked up I would appreciate to be considered for one. Thank you

    • Chris says:

      Hi Joan. Sorry to hear that! We unfortunately already have a wait list, and I’ll add you to it, but I don’t think we have enough extra that we’ll make it down to you on the list. Sorry about that.

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