Apricots Ready for U-Pick

Apricots, Raspberries, and Sour cherries are still being u-picked. The Montmorencies (sours, or tarts) will be done before next weekend. The apricots should last through the weekend, and raspberries are just rolling in every day till the frost comes. We will start Nectarines tomorrow. They are big and beautiful but still firm. Peaches will start before the weekend. We do not have any early varieties here at M88 so the Red Havens for upick will probably not start until next week.
We have our own sweet corn in finally and with all of the rain it looks pretty good.
Paula Red apples will be starting by the weekend too. the Sanzas and Zestars (both early sweet apples) will be coming in the next two weeks or so. Our first large volume apple Gingergold is probably going to start about August 27 th or so.
One of our new employees, Jessica, likes gardening and has created quite a buzz in the fruit stand with all of the greens, herbs, and sunflowers. She says we are still a week away from our first harvest of ‘heirloom’ tomatoes, but zukes, cukes, and pickles are all coming in. The rains that split the sweet cherries have done wonders with the rest of the fruit and vegetables that we grow.

This has been a good year for the Montmorency cherries. We are almost through harvesting and we had a nice crop. We sent 100,000 lbs to the processor to have them custom packed into 40 lb IQF (individually quick frozen) boxes. All of the rest went to the processor (or freezer) to be processed into Montmorency Tart Cherry Juice Concentrate. The cherries were sweet so it doesn’t take as many pounds of cherries to make a gallon of concentrate. If all goes well we will be done shaking Thursday or Friday.