i like sour richly flavored fruit so tart isn’t a issue for me. ill also be processing them for juice and jams so they will fit the bill perfectly. considering no other cherries grow here, just getting a crop of cherries is like winning the lottery.
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I can also say i was surprised by how sour my romeo cherries were, more so than my mesabi. I did a ton of reading before purchasing several bushes or romeo, juliet and CP and everything suggested these were the sweetest of the sour cherries so im a little disappointed to read this. I cant grow sweet cherries here and really wanted something to enjoy fresh, i cant do them in pies and such with diabetes so ill have to find another way to enjoy them. Maybe fermented, still waiting to see if anyone has tried that yet. I can eat them fresh just a little too much kick for me, hopefully juliet will be better than romeo i know its supposed to be…
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That’s exactly why they were bred!! Large parts of Canada now can grow cherries.
And apparently Maine too 
My son has a place in zone 4 Kalkaska (sounds to close to Alaska!) It sometimes just snows there from Lake Michigan.
He went fishing the other day. He got a Lake trout and a King salmon.
Anyway he is going to put some trees up there.
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Your experience with Juliet does seem to bolster the old adage “all gardening is local”
For me, I find it at least on a par with Montmorency if not less tart.
As you know I grow Early Richmond which I think is VERY close to a Monty in flavor. (I have a Monty in at a rental as well)
To me, the out-of-hand taste between CJ & Juliet is night and day.
I’ve commented before that CJ reminds me of a vary dry wine, or at least the way my mouth feels after eating them.
On the other hand, Juliet sort of reminds me of just a bigger Amarelle type (Monty & ER in my case…)
The flesh and juice have a pink look about it, which I kinda like too!
I’ve posted this picture before, but they’re on the right. You see the size difference between them and the CJ & ER.
My two Juliet bushes went in ground as twigs in '16 and this picture is from '18.
Here’s a shot from this morning, the two Juliet’s are on the far right.
They’ve grown well here, and are loaded.
This is a shot for perspective with peaches in the background that I’ve allowed to get too big!! (The fencing is 5’)
So my point is, it’s apparently very hard to have the same taste and growth experience across the regions.
For me, while CJ is a cherry machine - hindsight being 20/20 … if I had it to do over I’d still have CJ, just not 5 of them. In fact I have the 5 CJ’s and 2 Juliet (Pulled 2 Crimson Passion out) and I’d prefer the ratio be reversed.
I don’t think age of the bush impacts flavor but could be wrong (maybe climate/growing conditions from year to year) but the fruit I got in '18 from a twig planted in '16 was VERY good!
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I never expected fresh carmine jewel to be pleasant, but I was surprised that recipes needed more sugar than typical sour cherries. Last year, I noticed that only the cherries from the top of the bush get 16-17 brix, while the ones lower down and in the center might only get 10-13 brix. Of course, there was excessive ground water from rain, and the cherries were swollen and dilute. This year is looking like a drought summer, so that will be an interesting comparison.
I’ve been mixing them with other high sugar fruits, but more recently I’ve found that they can be made more palatable by removing some of the juice first, as I described here. I also noticed that seem more mellow after freeze/thaw, but that could be from juice release. It’s like carmine jewel cherries are 30-40 percent more cherry flavor in the same size package.
When using juice in ice cream, CJ will taste a bit like blackberry or black raspberry if the acidity is low enough. It will taste more like cherry if enough juice is added to taste the acidity. It definitely has a interesting flavor dynamic that sets it apart. I’m growing to like them more and more over time as learn how to work with them. The only thing missing is a mechanical pitter that is more efficient than my skewer method.
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Every single part of your post is extremely interesting to me (and others I’m sure) and I very much appreciate you writing it! I’m having a GREAT cherry year (my first good one ever) and as a result I’m suddenly fascinated and enamored with cherries. Your post is timely and so helpful.
I should first confess that I just don’t have a sophisticated or, I think, an extremely sensitive one. I can, however, detect the differences in CJ and Juliet and understand what you mean about CJ leaving that dry-wine aftertaste/after feel. I also hope I made clear that of the 3 I have- CJ, Romeo, and Juliet I do think Juliet is (slightly) the sweetest and also closer in taste to Monty than the other 2- but still far far more sour. It also produces the best for me.
But where my mind is really blown is hearing that you find Juliet to be “on par with Montmorency if not less tart”! You see, in the days since my original post saying I found my Juliet to be more sour/tart than Monty, my Monty cherries have ripened more and I’ve paid more attention and the differences between my Monty now and Juliet has grown a lot. In fact, I was going to post elsewhere about how thrilled I am with the sweetness of my Monty cherries. I have honestly bought sweet cherries at the store before that were no sweeter than my Monty. Of course the “meat” of sweet cherries and my Monty is different in texture, density, etc. And I’m not suggesting my Monty is sweeter than typical store bought sweet cherries-not at all. But in terms of sweetness only, my Monty this year are as sweet as some not-very-sweet sweet cherries if that makes any sense. THis takes them even further from Juliet than I first stated!
But in conclusion, I want to be clear that you and I (meaning our experiences with Juliet) are in agreement on almost every single thing you said except sweetness. The taste you describe, the juice color, the very high production rate of Juliet, and so on. ANd I’m very happy to have Juliet.
BTW…loved all those photos-very nice. Your Juliets look a lot more like a tree than my bushes do, but of course that is just pruning styles I think.
Thanks again for your great response. I think this thread will be helpful to lots of people considering planting Juliets.
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A few updates on my cherries.
My Carmine Jewels are about done. The below picture is from a week ago. What remains on the bushes has gone past their prime.
Carmine Jewels with and without stems, mulberries (Shangri La), strawberries.
Now my 2 year old Juliets are starting to produce. Of my 4 bushes only two have a significant crop. (These are the two I got from Costco last year with Week’ss Roses tags on them.)
Picture from today. Carmine Jewel on left, Juliet on right. The Juliet was the first one of this variety I have actually eaten. It was big, juicy, and surprisingly tart, but also sweet. I am interested in seeing how sweet they get over the next week or two.
Juliet cherries under netting.
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i have romeo, juiliet and monty that all hopefully set fruit. funny thing is c.j is bigger and a year older with no blooms. maybe i mislabeled them. but anyway i should be able to compare them and post my results. hopefully my netting comes in before they start to color. had some cherries on them last year and the damned birds got them!
Fruit size can also depend on the amount of fruit set. I have 3 CJ bushes. Last year, they all produced about the same amount in terms of weight (~40 lbs each), but the one bush overset and produced much smaller cherries than the other two.
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Thanks Steve! Looking forward to your report. I’m sure that up where you live getting a heavy cherry load that the Romance cherries provide will be a lot of fun and much appreciation. Speaking of your nets coming in, I hope you saw my posts a couple weeks ago when my cherries started to turn red! You just have no idea the level of bird pressure you are going to face- if it is anything like here. It is insane. Even after i finally got my nets on, it is unreal how cunning birds are for cherries. They will cover ever inch of the net, especially the bottom where it comes together. Any cherry within neck reach just inside the net is gone. If there is a hole of any kind in the net, they WILL find and exploit it I don’t get the same level of bird pressure on any other fruit-not even blueberries which are a close second. I tell you this just to tell you to go ahead and seal your net good the first time. I tend to sort of half-way do it thinking it is good enough, then having to redo it and go back over it and seal it all up. GOOD LUCK!
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At first, I was amazed that your Juliet has produced so early and held on th its fruit.
Well, now that you told us your Juliet is a potted plant from Costco, it makes a better sense. My Juliet was bare root.
Your describing how and what you do with your sour cherries makes me feel better. Worse comes to worst, we can make ice cream out of it 
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Excellent photo’s and the cherries look so delicious. For the cherries you posted which ones are n s e and w in the photo?
I also love montmorency and while i am hopeful for juliet a overripe monty is one of my favorite cherries. How would you compare Early Richmond in time of bloom and hardiness to snap frosts and does it ripen at a different time?
I’m certainly going to get some kind of mechanical pit remover for next year (open to suggestions everyone) but in the mean time, tell me about your skewer method? Right now I’m just doing it with my finger.
Thanks, also, for confirming that CJ’s are just sour and it isn’t just mine!
I’ve not pruned them for shape to speak of. All my bushes arrived as single stem twigs for the most part. I did make the mistake of trying to open them up by pruning out the centers a couple years ago and that was a huge error on my part. But the general shape of all my stuff is just like single trunk to globe shape. I’ve taken the Juilet’s down in height a little, and the CJ’s a LOT.
I assume you’re asking about the cherries on the plate (my outside picture doesn’t capture the ER) On the left, the dark ones are CJ, on the top the smaller brighter red are ER, and on the right are the Juliet.
I’ve never not had cherries from my ER, so cold and frost doesn’t appear to bother it. It’s been in ground since '95.
It’s about a week behind CJ.
Funny thing, this year while CJ & Juliet were in massive bloom it was fairly warm and the pollinators were here in great numbers.
By the time ER got around to making blossoms the weather turned colder and the pollinators seemed to be on strike!
I’ll still have some ER’s this year but cherries on the ol’ gal are as scarce as I can remember. And it’s not just my tree, I planted a Monty at a friends and his too is spotty as is my Nephews.
But in terms of ripening windows go, the ER is usually a week to ten days behind my bushes.
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Here is an example of what they looked like:
I hold the cherry upside down and use the butt end of a thin wooden skewer to push the pit out of the top of the cherry. If the pit hangs, I use the pinky finger on the hand holding the cherry to wipe the pit free. I’ve never found a missed pit yet because I visually verify each one. Once in the groove, I usually put on music or show I can listen to. It’s not fast but goes smoothly.
I tried the Norpro Deluxe Pitter after seeing it used with CJ in the video. It didn’t work that well for me. It was chaos and it missed an awful lot of pits. There is no way to confirm the misses while operating it. It needs a pit slide to the side so the pits can be visually confirmed. Sometimes cherries go in two at a time. Sometimes the cherry falls of the plunger too soon and doesn’t advance to the out slide. Some reviews mentioned the the plastic frame splitting, which is understandable since there is no dampened bump stop for the plunger. You get what you pay for. I can think of some modifications to make it work better, but I haven’t taken the time to experiment.
Thank-you! Honestly, though, I’ve gotten so fast doing it by hand I’m not the skewer thing would be faster! I just kind of reach in the top with my pointing finger and pop it out while holding it with my other hand. I sit and watch tv while doing it and goes pretty fast. I also never miss a pit. Nothing worse than biting into a cherry pit.
@IowaJer Interesting that yours just grew like a tree. Both of mine came with more than one “trunk” and I even let a 3rd plant come up one one- so mine are pretty much bushes. I’m very curious to hear why you think opening yours up was a mistake. I did the same thing and feel pretty strong it was the right thing for mine. They were so thick in the center that they got too little sun and leaves wouldn’t even make it…almost exactly like @BobVance described in the link posted by @Ozymandias a couple posts above. Not that either of us are right are wrong- just interested in why it wasn’t good for your trees.?
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Has anybody tried one of these Cherry stoners?They are mentioned on the Honeyberry USA site.It looks like the pulp gets chewed up a bit,but that shouldn’t matter too much if they are going to used for cooking.I’ve seen used ones being sold for about $25 on Ebay. bb
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A3uOPAdKies&feature=youtu.be
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