If you harvest the delicious cherries in abundance over the course of the summer, the work of the previous months has paid off. When it comes to cherry harvest, timing is also important.
Harvest ripe cherries
The cherries are already fully ripe on the tree. These can be recognized by the fact that the fruits are soft, juicy, fully colored and aromatic. If you do not want to eat or process the cherries right away, you can also harvest fruits that are not fully ripe.
However, one waits until fully ripe for immediate consumption, as the cherries increase in both size and quality. For some types of use (e.g. Rumtopf) it makes sense to harvest overripe cherries, as they have the highest sugar content in this state.
harvest time
Although the fruits of a tree ripen fairly evenly, the ripening period usually extends over 1-2 weeks, making it possible to spread the harvest over a longer period of time. The fruits ripen earliest on the well exposed outer parts of the crown. These also provide the largest and tastiest cherries. If possible, pick cherries in the early morning and in dry weather while the fruit is still cool.
cherry weeks
The cherry harvest time is divided into 12 cherry weeks. However, a cherry week does not consist of seven but fifteen days, so a month contains two cherry weeks. The cherry weeks in Germany begin on May 1st and end on October 31st. In the six months in between, it is possible to freshly harvest different early and late cherry varieties in different regions of Germany.
How is harvested
The cherries can also be harvested without the stalk for immediate processing, otherwise they are picked with the stalk to protect the fruit wood. If possible, sour cherries should be harvested with scissors to avoid tearing out the fruit stalks and thus infection with Monilia lace drought. A good, stable ladder is essential when harvesting cherries from the large trees.
tips and tricks
The best cherries often grow at unreachable heights. If climbing a ladder is too dangerous for you, you can also harvest from the ground with a fruit picker, which is commercially available.