->strudeldog-> Do you spray round up under the bushes to kill the grass like that, and if so, how do you apply it? I’m looking for an effective way to keep the grass/weeds away from my trees like your picture shows.
As much as these sucker I would be very careful using roundup. If your like me and mainly fight grass you can use something like Poast (Sethoxydim) that only kills grasses, won’t hurt any broadleaf plant. You will need a crop oil, Poast Plus I think is premixed with the oil. There are other options for all weeds if you have a license.
But I would like to hear what @strudeldog has to say.
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I did use Round Up but I can’t anymore. My C.J. did not sucker until this year, and now most are putting up suckers for the 1st time. I lost 2 trees this spring, I sprayed early this season before the trees leafed out. I have wondered if maybe I sprayed a sucker resulting in the loss, but I see no sign of a sprayed sucker and I checked when they did not leaf out. Those 2 trees are sending up a large numbers of suckers now, and I will probably thin to 3 or 4 trunks. All my C. J. until this year had been single trunk but many have a sucker or 2 now so I am not risking spraying again.
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Thanks for the info. That is why I’ve been hesitant. I mulch heavily around some of my trees (avoiding any direct contact with the trunk). It helps but can get expensive for dozens of trees, and needs reapplied every year or more. Unfortunately I let the weeds get really out of control on one of my 2 year old CJ’s last year and figured I’d just hand weed it this spring. I pulled tons of weeds and was worried I upset the roots. Sure enough, I ended up losing it. Sometimes you just can’t win.
Strudeldog,
We are getting very heavy rains and hail lately so there is a lot of concern but the Carmine Jewell’s have been keeping their crop. I attribute a lot of that to their thick foliage which conceals many of the cherries. Seems like a bad thing when I’m picking them and brushing back the foliage but it’s very beneficial when hail is falling because it did not knock off any of the cherries.
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Nice! I hope with the rain that you avoid the dreaded rain-crack. With all those bushes you may need to invest in helicopter 
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My thought is I’d need a mechanical harvester for that many cherries, maybe two!!!
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It is a very cool plant. The fruit is very tart, but it is rich too, so for cooking, and I’m thinking drying may concentrate the sugars. Maybe others that are a little sweeter in the Romance series would be even better dried. My wife says she can cook with dried fruit too, so I probably will dry most of them after one pie for sure! Mine are still all green.
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IowaJer,
I’m keeping a close eye on them but the first one that cracks the others that are close are getting picked. They are already sweeter than Montmorency so I’m not afraid to pick the pie cherries a little early and tarter than normal if it comes down to losing the crop. I’m planning on some of those being pies on the table for Thanksgiving and Christmas! A helicopter would be nice :0)
Fruitnut,
I only have a couple of rows of cherries ripe now and we love them! We are planning to juice a bunch of these this year. If I plant more I will pick a different variety of the romance series so the ripening time will change and I can stagger my crop. We have a big row of juneberries that will ripen any day now as well so we can’t handle more fruit now. The north stars I grow have a very light crop on them this year and they are very green. I planted one tree about 20 years ago and now have a couple more that must have came up from seed close by. I suspect my nieces can out pick a mechanical harvester but not many make it back to the house somehow!
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Carmine Jewel looks like it might be the first cherry to truely challenge Montmorency in the “Cherry Pie” catagory. Northstar…I don’t think so, move over for Carmine Jewel.
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Speedster,
I still grow a couple of Montmorency I grafted from scions from my girlfriends tree. I agree with you that Montmorency is a very strong producer. This is a picture I took within the last couple of years of my girlfriends Montmorency tree.
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sour cherry beer
sour cherry Garcia
sour cherry jalapeno jam
sour cherry clafoutis
I could use that many cherries, impressive
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Moley,
That sounds delicious especially the jalepeno cherry jam. I hope I can grow sweet cherries some day as good as sour cherries. I’m working on getting better at it.
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That right there one of the things that in my view might keep this variety from attaining Montmorency status. For all the really awesome attributes these U of S bush cherries have, the potential for rain crack is a real negative in my view. It’ll flat out ruin your day! And like I’ve said before, I’ve been told Montmorency & Early Richmond can and do rain crack, but I’ve just never seen it on any of mine.
I think I read where they are the most widely planted tart cherry in Canada, but Dr. Bors told me they have had very little incident of cherry rain crack, though they have had some. He indicated it was more the higher brix varieties rather than the CJ’s. I think he said CP’s maybe.
Still, the past couple wet years we had were so abnormal during ripening that it’s hard to be too hard on 'em for it.
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I didn’t realize the Carmine Jewels get so big, since a couple I have had at home here since 2009 are only waist-high and just starting to produce last summer. They are in poor soil and were nipped by deer a couple times, so that may have been a factor. Anyway, I have also more recently planted a double row of them on my rural land. They are spaced about 6’ apart in the rows which are also 6 to 8 feet apart. I am wondering if I should move the rows farther apart while the bushes are still just 1 1/2 feet tall, or will they be okay with a little pruning? There are also some Crimson Passions, Juliets, and Romeos in the rows, but there are a lot more Carmine Jewels.
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IowaJer,
I have had substantial cracking in past years but like you we are getting heavy rains in march - late June and ripening cherries in may or June now so this weird weather is not something I can blame on the variety either. The carmine jewell are excellent in most every way I can find. Montmorency I have never seen crack even during wet years.
Northwoodswis4,
I am shocked about the size of these. Many of the bushes are at least at 8’ or greater now and remember they sucker as well. I was told 6’ max and they did not sucker so it was a big surprise to me. Once I figured out they were not full grown it all made sense why they were producing so lightly during those early years.
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Northwoods; It kinda depends on what you’re looking for. In my case I went with 12’ on center spacing and that allows me room to maneuver when tending them, and I think (hope) allows for good wind flow. But others like a hedge kind of set up so they space closer together.
They for sure get bigger than they were initially advertised.
But to your question, I don’t think I would hesitate to prune them to what you want.
They grow quick here, and it doesn’t appear as if that’s limited to CJ’s. Here’s three pictures of my cherry bushes.
The first one is just to show the tiny size the Crimson Passion was when they arrived 2 years ago on 4/16/14.
This one shows the CP at the far right a year and two months later on 6/21/15.
And this last one was taken yesterday 6/26/16.
if you zoom in on that last one you may be able to see the Juliet’s I have in little cages outside the fenced in area. I have high hopes that they’ll perform equally as well.
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Beautiful! My Montmorency is loaded this year and I can’t wait to take pics, but through netting! Birds didn’t attack her tree?
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Mrsg47,
Thank you! We have birds but we don’t worry about them. There is to many cherries for my girlfriend to pick no matter what she does. I keep my birds busy with mulberries. They are so full of mulberries they can’t eat another bite. I planted them about 20 mulberry trees within a short distance of the cherries since they prefer mulberries. The Peregrine falcon will be back in a month or two and cuts down the birds numbers as do feral cats and other predators so the population never grows it just stays the same.
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I want to do the same thing plant a few mulberry trees at my cottage. And the rest of the Romance series. I can’t watch the crop, so I’ll keep adding mulberry trees till we all are full!
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