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Sweet Cherries for Mom’s Day
When it comes to dark, sweet cherries, my favorite is the Black Tartarian. A mature tree can reach 30 feet in height and spread. It yields 3 to 4 bushels of fruit. The cherries have a sweet, full-body flavor. Best of all, the tree blooms early. We’re having some in a fruit bowl for our Mother’s Day brunch this year.
Black Tartarian cherry trees need a pollinator such as Bing, pictured here
Black Tartarian trees need a pollinator with another sweet cherry. Options include Bing, Black Republican, Cavalier, Gold, Heidelfingen, Montmorency, Sam, Schmidt, Stella, Ranier, Van, Vega, Vista, and Windsor.
We’ve planted Stella and Bing as pollinators because these two cherry trees also have sweet, large size fruit and bloom about the same time as Black Tartarian. You can get by without a pollinator tree if you have one in the neighborhood. Trust the bees to pollinate your Black Tartarian when local cherry trees are in bloom.
A lovely treat for Mother’s Day
Black Tartarian cherry trees prefer a sandy, well-drained soil, however, ours tolerate some clay conditions. We’ve improved the soil in the holes where we’ve planted the trees but the farmette soil overall is clay.
The Black Tartarian needs about 700 to 800 chilling hours, meaning hours of outside air temperatures between 32° and 45° Fahrenheit.
Birds love these cherries, too, so you are well advised to cover your Black Tartarian cherry tree with netting (available at gardening centers and DIY stores) unless you care to share.
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If you enjoy reading about gardening, keeping bees, raising chickens, and creating delicious recipes, you might want to check out my novels from Kensington Publishing. The Henny Penny Farmette series of cozy mysteries are available online and in tradition bookstores everywhere, in hardcover, kindle, and mass market paperback formats.
First book in the Henny Penny Farmette series of mysteries
See, http://tinyurl.com/gnnqr8z
Novel #2 in the Henny Penny Farmette series, available Oct. 1, 2016
The Murder of a Queen bee will be released September 29, 2016 in hardcover and kindle formats. See, http://tinyurl.com/j9vh7vr
Check out my article about “How to Make a Lavender-Sage Smudging Stick.” See, http://tinyurl.com/jds38e8
Tags: Bing, Black Republican Heidelfingen, Black Tartarian, Cavalier, clay soil, dark cherries, Gold, Montmorency, pollinator, Ranier, Sam, Schmidt, Stella, sweet cherries, Van, Vega, Vista, Windsor