How to Grow: Cherries

I remember as a young boy riding in my uncle’s bucket loader as he hoisted me up to pick bushels of cherries from his tree. I still remember the stained smiles of my cousins and me from eating and picking those cherries (Prunus). Cherry varieties are either sweet or sour. While sweet cherries are mostly eaten fresh, and sour or pie cherries used for cooking, don’t let the names fool you. Sour cherries taste great eaten fresh off the tree, too. Sweet cherry trees are taller, less hardy, and more prone to diseases than sour cherries. They thrive in USDA zone 5 and warmer areas in our region. Sour cherries are naturally smaller trees and can survive into USDA zone 4. Cherry trees also are beautiful landscape plants. Dwarf varieties make perfect flowering trees in spring, in your yard with the added bonus of getting delicious fruit in early summer. Some varieties are self-fruitful, meaning you won’t need to plant another, different variety to get fruit.

When to Plant

Plant bare root cherry trees in early spring as soon as the ground can be worked. You can find a wider selection of trees, less expensively, bare root through the internet than what’s available at local garden centers. However, if you’re planting just 1 to 2 trees, buying a container cherry tree locally and planting in spring is easier.

Where to Plant

Cherry trees need full sun and well-drained fertile soil to grow well. Plant on the top of a slope to avoid late spring frosts. Cherry trees are more susceptible to root rot diseases if grown on heavy clay soil. If clay soil is your only option, plant on raised beds to help with water drainage.

How to Plant

Cherry trees come in standard sized trees (25-40 feet tall), semi-dwarf (15-25 feet tall) and dwarf (8-12 feet tall). Plant trees as far apart as their ultimate height. Dig holes twice as wide as the root ball and deep enough so the graft union (bulge on the bottom of the trunk) is 2 inches above the soil line.

Care and Maintenance

Keep a 4-foot wide area around the trees weed free by mulching with an organic material, such as straw. Keep the straw away from the trunk to avoid rot diseases. In late winter prune sweet cherries to a central leader system and sour cherries to an open center (see our pruning section for more on these techniques). Remove dead, diseased, or broken branches at any time. Once the tree is established and scaffold branches equally distributed around the trunk, pruning consist of removing water sprouts (straight shoots for the main branches) and root suckers (shoots coming out of the ground and around the trunk). Fertilizer in spring with compost or an organic product to correct any nutrient deficiencies based on a soil test. Poorly drained soil can lead to a number of soil borne fungal diseases such as fusarium wilt and root rot. Look for disease resistant varieties and keep the soil well-drained. Birds love cherries and you’ll need to place netting or scare devices around when the fruits begin to ripen. Protect the trees in winter with a tree guard wrapped around the trunk to prevent mice and voles from girdling the bark.

Harvest

Cherries start producing fruits about 3 to 5 years after planting. They usually ripen in June in our region. Pick fruits when they easily can be removed from the branch.

Additional Information

Some good sweet cherry varieties to try in our region are ‘Kristin’, a hardy variety from Norway; ‘Black Gold’, a new hardy, self pollinating variety from Cornell University; and ‘Stella’, a Canadian variety with good hardiness and early bearing trees. Some good sour cherry varieties that are self-pollinating so don’t require another variety are ‘Bali’ are very hardy variety from Canada; ‘Mesabi’ with sweet fruits even for a sour cherry; and ‘Northstar’ that only grows 8-feet tall. Text excepted from the Northeast Vegetable and Fruit Gardening book.