So I've had quite the experience tonight. A new friend of mine invited a group to her family's farm to watch the cherry harvest. Now, when I think of farming, I don't really think the word fascinating, but I was wrong. It was fascinating. Her family owns 1500 acres of land of which 200 acres are set aside for tart cherries. I got a little lesson in cherry farming, and I'd love to share it with you.
 |
| This was taken with my phone, so it isn't the best quality, but this was packed with cherries. |
Unlike sweet cherries, tart cherries do not need to be handpicked, which means they get shaked off the trees by these amazingly powerful and creatively named machines called cherry shakers. Watch their amazingness below:
They are able to harvest 1,000 pounds from every five trees--that's 200 pounds of cherries on every tree! The cherries are then hoisted up a conveyor belt and placed in a bin full of water, where the cherries sink and the leaves and branches float and can be removed. They are stored in water for 6 hours so they will be firmer to be pitted later to be frozen or dried.
The thing I was struck by was how much work went into harvesting the cherries. When they are harvesting, they are doing it for about 20 hours a day. They are also cleaning and pitting all of the cherries. In the winter, the farmers are always watchful that the trees don't freeze, so they have thermometers throughout the orchard, which alert the farmers if the temperatures get too low, even in the middle of the night. Then they set up tents and set up propane torches along the orchard. They also have these cool things called wind machines.
 |
| This isn't my photo. I forgot to take one. I stole it from here: http://carterorchards.com/images/2013/windmachine.JPG |
wind machine: an electric windmill-like machine that sends warm air floating above the cold air down to warm up orchards
Even warming up the orchard by 3 or 4 degrees can save the crop. Besides all this work, the farmers are also pruning and mowing all those acres. Then there's all the work with getting the produce to market and working in a co-op with other farmers and hoping you have a good harvest. Basically, farmers rock.
Hope you're enjoying life!
Cheers,
Amanda
What fruit or vegetable do you look forward to coming into season?
No comments:
Post a Comment