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The King Family
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PICKLES ARE IN!
0 comments Megan | Crop Updates & Orchard Talk, In the Markets
Apricots are beautiful! Peak u-pick for the next couple of days. Apricots will be in the market for a good two weeks. Peaches —-Garnet Beauty, the semi cling peach is the first peach to get ripe. I will be opening u-pick Wed 7/28. They are big and sweet. Red Havens we think will be ripe somewhere between the 5th and the 1oth of August. Summer plums are in and delicious. Bay City honey rocks are in and are they great this year. Come into the market soon because King Orchards sweet corn will be ready by the week-end July 30th!!!!
There are so many vegetables in the market this time of year. It’s heaven for a vegetarian like me! We get some of our vegetables from Bay City, MI, but many of them come locally or from our farm as well. Some of the best things we have right now are the zucchini, summer squash, and potatoes. They’re all cheap, and easy to make for a healthy meal! Right now we’re selling sweet corn from bay city, but in a few days we should be seeing our own in the market. Here’s a little price guide for the veggies, although some prices change time to time, depending on the size of them…
Summer Vegetables
Corn (Bay City) — .45/ear, 5.00/dozen
Potatoes (White) — 1.00/quart, 2.00/5lb bag
Potatoes (Red) — 1.50/quart, 3.00/5lb bag
Cucumbers — .75/slicing cuc, 2.75/quart of picklers
Summer Squash & Zucchini — .75/each
Onions — .60
Tomatoes — 1.99/lb
Green & Wax Beans — 2.00/1lb bag
Fruit-Filled Friday Orchard Tour at King Orchards
Ingredients:
8 c. (2 lbs.) fresh tart cherries, unpitted
2 c. sugar or 1 lb. sugar cubes
4 c. vodka or brandy or bourbon
1 1/2 tsp whole allspice (optional)
1 1/2 tsp whole cloves (optional
2″ stick cinnamon (optional)
Wash and stem cherries. Alternate layers of cherries, sugar and spices, if desired in a sterilized 2-quart jar. Cover with liquor. Store covered in cool dark place. Shake or stir once a day the first week, then once a week for two months. Strain the liqueur, setting cherries aside. Let liqueur stand for 2 hours, pour clear liqueur into sterilized glass containers, being careful not to disturb sediment. Make second batch.
Traditionally, the first batch of Cherry Bounce is served during the Christmas season; the second is served at Easter.
You can make the second batch by adding more sugar and bourbon to the cherries, but traditionally sauterne is used rather than bourbon. Cover the cherries with 4/5 quart of sauterne. Follow the same stirring and storing procedure as in the first batch.
This week we are picking Balaton tart cherries. If you want to make cherry bounce this year these are the cherries you want to use. We are picking with the stems on and they should keep for traveling. Cherry bounce is easy to make and fun to drink come the holidays. Also these are the type of tart cherry we will be shipping. Shipping is happening this week and the beginning of next week. 11lbs for 40.00 plus shipping ( they would need to go next day air). Cherry picking is getting over but you can come out and try. The cherries are big and black but take work to find. Raspberries are great! Apricots should be coming full force Thurs 7/15. Everyone is loving the IQF (individually quick frozen) montmorency and balaton cherries for pies and Jam. We will have these available way into the winter. Good week to come out! Betsy
Things have been so busy in the market! Our sweet cherry u-pick crop has been small, but it’s lasted through the 4th of July weekend, which is very good. We are expecting it to end by Sunday, June 11th however, so be sure to get out here while you can! Picking is a bit of a challenge if you compare to past years, because of how spaced out the cherries are on the branches. They are delicious though! Betsy is calling this year the “doing, not getting year”, because it’s more about going out and having fun than getting as many cherries as you can in your bucket.
In other news, the raspberries are looking great for this weekend. Our raspberries are “everbearing”, which means that raspberries ripen in batches all summer long. It’s so fun and easy to go out there and pick them, I highly recommend giving it a try.
If picking off of bushes isn’t your idea of u-pick fun, Apricots may be for you. We’re planning to have apricots ready for picking this weekend, although they will still be quite firm. Hard apricots are perfect for traveling though, so if you’re passing through the area, be sure to take some home with you!
Be sure to stay tuned for the latest U-pick, Market, and general updates on the blog and our facebook!
0 comments Megan | Crop Updates & Orchard Talk, In the Markets
Things have been getting very busy around the fruit stand. We are still u-picking sweet cherries. We will be u-picking until atleast Tuesday, possibly longer. We will keep you updated on a for sure date in the next couple days.
We got the sweet cherry pitter out today! It is one of the coolest things to watch, so ask about getting some cherries pitted when you pick some. It makes for super easy freezing and eating and saves you a ton of work!
We just got done picking off of our early apricot trees. Our big crop will be coming in about 2 weeks or so. These early ones were amazing so I think it is safe to say we will be expecting many more delicious apricots available for u-pick and in the market.
We got our first shipment of Michigan blueberries in today. They look great and taste even better! Prices on blueberries are as follows:
$3.75/pint
$6.25/quart
$12.00/2 quarts
*We will be getting in 10lb boxes on the 9th and have begun taking orders for those
We have been getting lots of questions about when veggies are going to start coming in. Betsy talked to our Bay City farmer today and we are hoping to get onions, potatoes and possibly sweet corn next weekend!
Unfortunately, we are still thinking that there will be no tart cherries available for u-pick. The good news, however, is that we had a great crop last season and stocked our freezers with pitted tart cherries. Making a cherry pie just became way easier, no pitting or picking necessary 
Also, strawberries have ended now. Thanks to our strawberry man for another great season and wonderful berries. We can’t wait til next season!
U-pick is now in full swing here at the orchard. We opened up apricot picking this morning and they are delicious! We just started on a few trees today, but we will be picking for the next month or so. This is one of my favorite fruits here so don’t miss the early season this year!
Sweet cherries are still going. Even with the challenges cherries have had this year, people have been coming back with some very nice looking fruit and seem content with their picking experience. It does take a little extra sorting with the splits they have gotten from the rain, but the good ones taste amazing as ever.
Raspberries are also still being picked. We just have u-pick on these, but it’s normally quick and easy. I went out and picked a few today to sample in the market and they are looking great. There are tons out there. The patch we have is ever-bearing which means they will be around all summer, so make sure to grab a few while you’re visiting the orchard.
-Courtney
0 comments Courtney | Crop Updates & Orchard Talk, In the Markets
I have been riding through the sweet cherries this afternoon trying to get together a plan to manage u-pick. The crop is very short. The early May frost damaged almost all of the blossoms in the larger sweet cherry block that slopes to the West. There are a few black sweets (Cavaliers) that survived but 95% of the trees in this block have no fruit at all. The light sweet cherries in this block also froze out. The second sweet cherry block is North of the farm house and slopes to the East. This block came through the frost in much better shape. While the trees in the lowest rows are pretty bare there is a good crop of dark sweets (Ulsters) and some light sweets in trees that are higher up the hill. Along with the reduced crop we have recorded rain on 15 of the last 24 days. As sweet cherries ripen, rain can cause cracking, and there are are a great many cracks in the cherries we do have.
We are also dealing with a crop that is two weeks ahead of normal. This means that many customers will be looking to pick after we have already finished. We are putting out the word right now that U-pick is open until the cherries are gone, but that could be in 10-14 days. I wish we could notify all of the customers about the early crop, but because the crop is so small we will run out anyway and so some customers will not be able to pick. We do have sweets on a leased farm South of Elk Rapids and we will be picking those to sell in the market and we hope to have cherries in the stand for people who wanted to pick but missed the early, small crop. The sweet cherry trees at our US31 market have some cherries on them too so we will be open there for u-pick while they last. The trees at the US31 market were planted in 2003 and they have not produced much so far but we hope that block bears large crops starting next year.
When there are cracks in the cherries u-pick is a great option because the customer can pick and sort cherries as they go. Commercial cherry canners are not able to use cherries that have a high percent of cracks. So we really are looking forward to getting u-pickers out there, but I want to forewarn customers that it will be more work to get good cherries. On the plus side the small crop and unending rain have created many HUGE beautiful cherries that will taste very very good!
On the tart cherry side of our operation the news is not any better. We have 40 acres of tarts with nothing on the trees. We will not be able to have any u-pick in tarts this year. We will have available our own frozen pitted tarts.
In the big picture we have a good crop of tarts on 2 lease farms so we are not completely blanked. Apricots, peaches, and nectarines, have a full crop, and we will have u-pick, and they will start earlier than normal which should be good. We estimate that we have 65% percent of an apple crop, but that should work out ok because the apple crop in Michigan is less than half, so we expect good prices. We also have a crop of Balaton cherries and demand seems to be up for those. Raspberries are coming in right now too and we will have them throughout the summer and fall.
John