I wonder why that is? I don’t find my CJ to be sour. Certainly not sweet like sweet cherries but not very sour. Mine where just starting to ripen a few days ago. The gray catbirds certainly like them. This morning I checked and all the cherries where gone.
im in z3b and mine are less than 1/4in. how old is your C.J?
Honestly Im not sure, prolly 6 years or so?
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mine are 4 so now i have a idea what to look forward to. mine have really responded to the manure i gave them this spring. i skipped a year fertilizing because they were getting too to heavy. now they are again. i think I’m going to let the trunk side catch up with the canopy and leave them be for a few years. probably put out 12in. of new growth already.
Anyone out there successfully keeping their romance cherries pruned to stay small? Wondering if I can squeeze one into a smaller space…
I honestly don’t know, but since I said that I’ve had others say they had similar experiences. I can also tell you that after I posted about my CJ (well, all my Romance really) being more sour than I expected, I had Montmorency come in. This really proved to me that it isn’t just my tastes that are off and lead me to call my Romance very sour…because my Montmorency were considerably sweeter- by a lot really- than my romance cherries. Yet others here in this very link have said their Monty’s are considerably more sour than their Romance. SO go figure? As someone noted above, this just proves all gardening is local!!!
BTW…you mention CJ as if perhaps you find it sweeter than Juliet. Am I reading you right on that? I ask because my Juliets, sour as they may be, are sweeter than my CJ’s. hmmmm!!!
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My Juliet’s have flowered yet so I can’t compare with CJ.
would b interesting to test brix. sometimes what tastes sweeter actually isn’t because there is no or less sour to mask it.
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Picked my Carmine Jewels yesterday during a tornado warning. They were ready, but I wish I could have left them on for a few more days, however, I just couldn’t risk it with all the rain. Got about 3 quarts from 3 bushes. I’m sure production was affected by the late freeze. Didn’t get enough from any other sour cherry varieties to even justify netting this year. Glad to get these. I used cicada netting (1/4" squares), had it on for maybe a week and it already seemed to deform the branches.
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beautiful…now tell us about the TASTE??? 
Had you tasted CJ before? Sweet or sour to you?
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yes, this is about my third year in a row getting a good crop. They were sour this year. Brix topped out at 13 with most at 11, I’ve had them higher in the past. We had a few weeks of hot dry weather so I thought they would be sweeter but with our late freeze they set later than normal. I really could have used a few more days of ripening but they would have just cracked too badly with about 2 inches of rain. I made pie filling with them and it is fantastic, especially on top of waffles. In the past I’ve enjoyed them fresh by the handful but this year I just ate a few fresh and processed the rest.
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Here are my two biggest bushes. The one on the left is a Juliet, the one on the right is Romeo. I have six total, but the other four are small starts that came off of the main Juliet bush that I’ve transplanted elsewhere.
The tomato cage and other stuff is my attempt at getting them back up so that the cherries aren’t in the dirt. Color wise I think the Juliet are pretty close to being ripe, but they have been sweetening up every day so I will probably wait another few days before picking them. Romeo seems to be a couple weeks behind Juliet for me and is still super sour.
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You are the luckiest one I’ve seen so far to get such a large crop on young bushes like those. Impressive!
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Here is a little bit of my final review for my cherry bagging project on Juliet cherries.
Bottom line… I feel like I had huge success. We had a couple days of solid rain right when I had originally planned to harvest and that resulted in some splitting and a little subsequent rot, but I lost probably only a couple dozen to fungus total. The splitting affected maybe 10% of the crop and it was no real loss because I just used them in jam.
Example of rot
General fruit quality was very high.
I think Juliet is a real winner in my area and could be grown organically with netting. The late rain and the associated splitting/rot was my only issue really and as fruit problems go was minimal.
edit:
I just want to add to make this somewhat more scientific that almost adjacent to these Juliet cherries were some larger Carmine Jewel bushes that I did not bag but did treat a couple times with Bonide Plant Guard:
I got good results from the Carmine Jewels but had a lot more PC issues despite the sprays. It isn’t fun when you are cooking your jam and worms float up to the top… (generally I can spot infested fruit but apparently not always…)
Next year I plan to go 100% bags.
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Where do you live and how long have the tree fruited for you will be deciding factors if you could grow them organically long term.
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I am in Fairfax County VA, just outside of DC, Zone 7A.
I have been growing bush cherries for several years but they were always Carmine Jewels before this year.
Because I am growing in a backyard and am not really concerned about cost or return on investment the bags have worked well for me this year and last.
The biggest drawbacks I have seen so far are:
You have to keep the trees small enough to fit. (not a problem since I am just growing for fun and don’t need maximum yield)
You have to buy the bags, and they aren’t super cheap depending on the size. (300"x300" is $113, though that is really quite big)
Despite trying to cinch the bags tight around the trunks of the tree I have still caught a few birds each year and had to release them. The bags also catch all dropped fruit and general refuse creating a potential disease issue. (meaning I have had to repeatedly open and close the bags to free birds, remove dropped fruit, etc, I may not be spraying but the bags are not effortless.)
You have to be as disciplined about putting the bags on as you would spraying. If you don’t get the trees covered before the PC arrive you will close them in. (I have done this.) Of course if you spray inside the bag at least one application will solve the problem.
I have seen dramatically increased aphid issues inside the bags (lack of predators?), but they don’t appear to have caused any great harm.
The bags have constrained the growth of the trees, resulting in them growing to the shape of the bag… not sure if this is a big problem yet.
Your neighbors may think you are nuts.
The benefits are pretty obvious:
I have gotten much prettier, cleaner fruit using the bags than trying other approaches.
Bags protect against both insects and birds, so if you are going to use bird netting anyway you might as well just use insect barrier netting.
Other than getting the bags on promptly at petal fall they are more forgiving in terms of weather/scheduling. You don’t have to worry about a rainstorm washing away Surround right as the PC are arriving.
Things I still don’t know:
I don’t have long-term results basically.
I don’t know about the durability of the bags. I am on year 2 so far.
I don’t know whether disease issues will become greater in the future. That the bags would create an ideal environment for disease was my primary concern going in and that hasn’t been the case so far.
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I planted Romeo, CJ, Carmine Passion, and Juliet three springs ago. Fungi and deer pressure (lack of proper measures on my part) have taken five of my six but this one has proven hardy. I’ve not done any sprays and now for its first spring/summer without deer pruning it seems to be taking off. I just can’t tell which one. Wonder if it’s identifiable to anyone here. The slight leaning is due to a recent storm knocking it over w it’s deer protection. Thanks for any thoughts. I’m also wondering, assuming it keeps surviving, if it would fruit without any others nearby.
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they are self fertile so you will still get cherries. going to have to wait for fruit to identify which one it is as the bushes look identical. i have CJ, romeo and 2 Juliet. had some CJ and juilet cherries in july. were pretty good for a sour cherry. i sprayed mine with immunox and malathion a few times this summer and they are dark green and healthy.
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