So my nankings are especially loaded this year and was wondering what are your favorite uses for the fruit.
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For the most part we just munch on them. For us they are fairly good but not spectacular enough to process them into something else.
If I had a bumper crop I would consider playing with a steam juicer.
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I gave up on them. They make good jam but are a pita to process. Big pits and not much fruit. I am focusing my energy on growing other fruit.
Wow!
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@don1357 Don has the answer, I think. They make fine jelly and are nice to nibble on when you’re out and about.
But my favorite use of Nanking cherry bushes is to graft them over to plums. I think they make very good dwarfing rootstocks for plums and should for apricots, too.
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I suspect Nanking Cherry and Aronia would make a fantastic wine.
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You could juice them with a steam juicer and make concentrated cherry juice or jelly.
You could also use a regular juicer, but my understanding is that you have to drop the cherries in one at a time for most juicers, unless you want to totally wreck your screen.
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Beautiful!
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Do you have a ‘secret’? They almost never fruit here. (KY)
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At this time I have not had any issues to speak of when it comes to my nanking cherries. I wish the same could be said of my other fruits.
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No secret, for me the bushes were planted mostly as an ornamental screen. This is the 3rd year I’ll have fruit. I have a heavy layer of wood chip mulch and they grow really well but not treated any different than my other fruit trees or bushes.
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We got nice crops off of our Nankings for th first few years, but often as not they seem to suffer from bacterial blight most years now. Sometimes it kills tge whole bush back to the ground, often just destroys most of the crop
Yes, I can grow the bush for a hedge successfully.
But, I’ve never seen more than a very few fruits.
(Maybe it’s the early bloom and frost.)
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Nankings on my old place in southcentral WI were pretty steady, annual producers. They did prove to be relatively short lived though (maybe a decade or so). Most that we used were for snacking, but an old tenant made a bunch of jelly with them a few times. It was very good.
I’ve always thought of Nankings as a plant of the midwest/north.
I think the secret is being planted in zone 4a. 
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I’ve grown them for decades here in NY zone 5. They’re one of my favorite fruits as far as production and flavor, but they are tedious to pick in quantity. I just stand at a bush, picking and eating. One year I did pick a bunch of them, then pressed the juice out in a colander. It was delicious and refreshing, one of the best.
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Hats off to you Mr. Reich. Good to read you here again.
ditto
@Lee, do you have issues with dieback? Ive had lots over the years, and seldom get a decent crop any longer. I assume its bacterial blight. I see it on Nankings, Hansen’s bush cherries, and U of Sask bush cherries. Theres often some on my Surefire sour cherry, though it seldom seems to affect cropping much on those.
I did have a question. Have you ever typed using a blueberry rake on Nanking cherries? I had huge success using it on Goumi berries.
Goumi fruit - General Fruit Growing - Growing Fruit
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