Good news and not the best news: YES, we have organic dark and gold sweet cherries, and so far a good crop. Organic Montmorency tart cherries this year are the ‘not the best news’ – We had 8 nights of 28 degrees or so and those nights slowly froze many blossoms – but YES we believe we have enough tart cherries to meet the needs of our U Pick customers. FYI – this will be our 24rd year certified organic! Yup, before organic was cool.
Keep an eye on Instagram and Facebook for more updates.
Our thanks,
The Kobernik’s
Sigh…straight to the point…we have healthy trees; we have numerous leaves, and we have NO cherries. March brought several days of much too warm of temperatures then April brought days and days of freezing temperatures [talk to us about climate change!]. Out of 36 years in cherries, never had three back-to-back years of crop failure that was out of our control.
There will be no machine harvest [no organic frozen IQF or dried cherries] and no U Pick available to our glorious customers.
Some may think we ‘have the summer off”. Quite the contrary, we have received and spread our semi load of custom blended compost, the orchard floor needs constant attention, young trees are pruned, rose chafers hand picked off by the thousands, the sprayer sprays, old trees removed, pollinator habitat renewed and so much more. The work and expenses truck right along and so do we. We will be here next year with the optimism expressed in our 2020-year post.
Gratefully we, our family and nearest friends all endured and survived COVID-19 and our sympathies for those who faced greater pandemic challenges.
The Kobernik’s
First, we sincerely hope all of you are safe and well.
North Star’s great news: We will have U-Pick this year!
Details will follow in the next several days. Tentatively we are looking at opening for Sweet/tart cherries to be ready Wednesday, July 22nd.
North Star’s not so great news: we do not have enough tart cherries on our trees to warrant large scale harvest, that will mean there will be no IQF tart cherries and no dried cherries for another long year.
Again, more details to come!
The Kobernik’s
“The farmer has to be an optimist or he wouldn’t still be a farmer.”
We’re sad to announce that North Star Organics did not harvest the entire crop this year. Cherry farmers are faced with many tough decisions, and this season was particularly challenging for us. We take pride in providing high quality products, and the fruit this year was not able to meet our standards.
We will have frozen organic tart cherries in August 2020 and dried organic cherries in September 2020.
AND we will now enter our 21st year organic and 35th year growing those cherries with renewed fortitude. Our thanks to all those who have offered such support and encouragement.
Organically yours,
Alan & Cheryl Kobernik