From Blossom to Bucket: A Year in a Cherry Orchard

Ever wonder how those delicious cherries make it from the tree to your bucket?
At Mike’s U-Pick, we experience the fascinating annual cycle of our cherry orchard firsthand, and we’re excited to share it with you.

The U-Pick Season Opens

Imagine this:
“It’s May and the cherries are ripe and ready to be picked! Yay!”

People hit the streets of Brentwood by the thousands, even tens of thousands on the weekends, especially after all active Brentwood cherry orchards are open for the season.

For this reason, we advise using caution driving around during your cherry (and other fruit) picking adventure. View our driving tips here.

When a cherry orchard opens and how long it remains open depends on a variety of factors. How many acres they have planted, how densely the trees are planted on those acres, which varieties of cherries they are growing (each with its own ripening schedule), and, of course, Mother Nature’s cooperation. For example, if we had too much strong winds while the trees were in bloom, and those flower blossoms get disconnected and blown away, then that cherry can’t grow (times a thousand blossoms). Or maybe there was too much rain, or too little heat from the sun. Lastly, it depends how many people come picking, and how much they pick. All of these factors can greatly affect how long any individual orchard stays open. At Mike’s, we’ve chosen 3 varieties with natural staggered ripening times. See our varieties here. Every year is a little different for us; sometimes we get sold out after only 3 or 4 weeks and sometimes we can stay open for 8 or 9 weeks. The reason for this is due to all the factors outlined above.

After we close for the season, we take a little breather. Cherry U-Pick time can be a little intense for us; greeting every one of our orchard’s visitors and giving them picking tips and “how to’s”, cashing people out, keeping an eye on the parking situation, reminding visitors about our “Photo Op” Board, and more.

We aim to give each of our visitors an intimate boutique experience when they choose Mike’s for their cherry-picking adventure.

Summer: Rest and Renewal

Over the Summer months, after the season ends, many things happen. First, the trees are pruned. This is an art; pruning trees correctly allows the trees to be more fruitful (more cherries in everyone’s buckets) and keeps the trees healthy. We also maintain the orchard floor (where everyone walks on picking days). We monitor irrigation lines, address any developing issues, de-weed and mow, and adhere to a strict watering schedule to keep the trees healthy during the hot summer months.

The Winterizing Months:
A Time for Chill and Preparation

From October through January, are the Winterizing months. The leaves fall. The trees go dormant. This is an important time; as the cherry trees require 3 months of cold, certainly cool, weather (called ‘chill hours’) to get a new crop for the next year. We always hope to get the MOST chill hours possible during these months.

Pruning creates a lot of debris. During the Autumn, this debris is burned in our open fields in hot smoldering, carefully watched fires, and only on permitted ‘burn days’.

Again, during these Winter months, we are irrigating as needed, maintaining the orchard floor, and we also fertilize, to nurture the trees for the coming year.

Early Spring: Blossoms and Bees

In March, our annual order of beehives are delivered to the orchard, essential for pollinating the cherry blossoms. At Mike’s, we typically order about 12 boxes and they stay on site for approximately 6 weeks.  

In March through April, the white cherry blossoms everyone loves to see start to grow. After the blossoms turn a brilliant white, then turn brown, little green nuggets form, which will turn into the cherries. The goal is to form a cherry from each blossom, and assuming we don’t get strong winds, they will. This is the factor that determines the size of the crop. Thank you, Mother Nature!

By now, the whole orchard is in bloom, and the bees are happily cavorting from tree to tree, pollinating the blossoms. Thank you, Bees!

During this time, we continue irrigating, fertilizing, and maintaining the orchard floor.

The blossoms are slowly closing and beginning to form into cherries. Then we wait on Mother Nature again. Cherries need sun and HEAT to form properly, and certainly to grow large. Plus, we are still irrigating (and hoping for a little rain from Mother Nature, but not too much rain, and certainly not cold rain!).

The cherries are growing larger and we begin to ‘walk the field’ – testing and tasting until ENOUGH rows have ripened to the point where it makes sense to open for the new u-pick season.

At this point, Mike’s U-Pick has typically begun sending out their email blasts letting everyone know how it’s going and giving our best guess for the season opening date.

And then we start the cycle all over again.

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But for now, until the season opens,
let’s start daydreaming about eating delicious cherries….