Nothing says summer quite like a cherry.
The big, beautiful fruit signals that summer is officially upon us, their arrival on the store shelves only lasting a short time during peak season.
The ups and downs of growing cherries starts all the way back when the ground is frozen, and the pruning still needs to be done.
After a long winter, spring melts the ice into beautiful cherry blossoms. The bees and other pollinators buzz in, attracted to the miles of wildflowers planted by the cherry trees. Getting the proper pollination early on is critical to the success of the crop. We decided that we needed to be proactive about the support of the pollinator population. We teamed up with the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation to get 312 acres of orchard land Bee Better Certified. That makes all that acreage officially designated pollinator habitat. Afterall, without pollinators there wouldn’t be any cherries to enjoy!
Springtime is very exciting around here; you could say it ~buzzes~ with anticipation.
Once the blooms are done and the pollinators are ready to rest, those big, beautiful cherries emerge.
There really isn’t a site quite like a cherry limb heavy with fruit. A Washington State Garden of Eden. Did you know that all our cherries are grown in Washington? They’re worth the wait all year because, and we aren’t bias at all, our warm days and cold nights produce the most spectacular cherry the world has to offer.
It’s a funny thing if you think about it, but a cherry pit is the same size no matter how big the cherry that you’re holding is, the bigger the cherry, the more fruit there is to enjoy. It’s kind of like when you cut into an avocado and it’s mostly pit, that’s annoying right? Well, we like to grow our cherries as big as possible, so you get those full bites of pure cherry. It also happens that the ones in the package you purchased are the biggest most beautiful cherries we grow.
It’s not easy harvesting our cherries, there’s a lot of time and effort it takes during harvest. Each and every single cherry is handpicked. It takes many hands to make light of that work, that’s why Rainier had their ranches and their packing facility certified by the Equitable Food Initiative (EFI), a rigorous third-party certification that increases assurance around working conditions and food safety for farm workers. Rainier has always believed in doing the right thing, simply because it’s the right thing to do. And we wanted to prove it by getting all our fancy certifications so you can rest assured our products are produced by the highest human rights standards.
It feels like a celebration and a major achievement now that it’s finally time for cherries. Here at Rainier, we take pride in everything we grow, but there’s something special about our cherries. They tend to be a favorite of everyone who works here, from the ranches to the sales desk, cherries are our number one weakness.
Cherries really are the last truly seasonal crop left.
With a short import season and limited quantities, their seasonality makes them all the more special, coming in on a summer breeze and sweeping us off our feet.
Cherries really are the last truly seasonal crop left.
With a short import season and limited quantities, their seasonality makes them all the more special, coming in on a summer breeze and sweeping us off our feet.
