Fabulous Find: Tart Cherries

One of the delights of progression through the warm summer months is the progression of fruits available. While on a farm tour of the Montgomery County Agriculture Reserve, our group stopped at Homestead Farms, a large you-pick fruit operation that caters to families for a day out of fun, with tractor rides to the fields to pick your own fruit, and goats, chickens and other farm animals to get an close up experience for the kids.

At this time, they offered blueberry, cherry and strawberry picking. After having gorged myself on the recent offerings of strawberries from Norman’s Farm Market, I went for the tart cherries.  I’ve never seen fruit like this before: the bright tart cherries on the trees were almost the color of red-hots, and seemed like little red candies calling out to be plucked off.

Little red rubies ready for a pie

And for the first time, I got the real meaning of the phrase, ‘low hanging fruit’ as most of the easy to reach cherries on the lower branches were gone and the beautiful, untouched red fruits I wanted were high above. Using a combination of  stretching up on my tippy toes and bending branches downward, I was able to reach a small amount of the fruits, delicately picking them one at a time. And of course, a few went straight into my mouth as I went.

“A lot of work to get these” remarked one woman I struck up a conversation with. Too true. But with their tart cherry taste and bright color, I reckon these will make the perfect, perfect cherry pie.