The cherry harvest started this week in our province. And that’s too late, because those red gems are normally picked in June. NH reporter Sjoerd Hilarius took a look at the cherry Valhalla of ‘cherry king’ Siem Entius in Nieuwe Niedorp, who tells him about the setbacks and the usefulness of a stalk on a picked cherry.
Siem Entius grows apples, pears and plums with his fruit growing company, in addition to cherries. And although (literally) plum season is almost around the corner, when NH is present all eyes are on harvesting rows about 200 meters long, bursting with deep purple cherries.
The late harvest has everything to do with a night frost in early spring. “Which we thought we wouldn’t have any damage from,” Entius tells NH. At the stage the cherries were in then, they should be able to withstand -3 degrees of frost. But despite the night frost of -2.5 degrees, Entius saw that the cherry blossoms close to the ground were smaller in size and the pistil had frozen out. “And if the pistil is out, then there is no more fertilization. So then you don’t have any cherries from that.”
Can be pollinated for one day
The setback did not stop there. Especially at the beginning of the flowering period there was cold, rainy weather. Entius: “Then the bees just fly a lot less. And the bumblebees and the mason bees.” Those little buzzers are much needed for proper pollination. “A cherry is very sensitive. Actually, a flower can only be ‘pollinated’ for one day. You really need good weather, and that the insects fly well. It doesn’t just happen,” says the grower.
“A cherry is very sensitive”
Not only residents of the Noordkop, cherry lovers flock to Nieuwe Niedorp from far and wide. Entius not only grows, he also sells his fruit on the spot. “We do have people from The Hague, or people who go on holiday to Suriname or Indonesia and say: ‘they are going to Suriname or Indonesia’.”
Old men on ladders
Nowadays you don’t have to climb a meter high tree to pick cherries. By grafting the cherry trees, they remain smaller in size. That used to be different. Entius: “The trees used to be up to twenty meters high. Then they also had to use ladders, very long ladders, to get them from the top of that tree.”
Cherry pickers of that caliber turned out to be a dying breed. “In the end, only very old males could do that, they were used to it. There were no young people left who could do that,” says the fruit grower. The trees are now about three meters high, so that a home-garden-kitchen staircase is sufficient.
“We also have people who go on holiday to Suriname or Indonesia and say: ‘these are coming along'”
The cherries that have been available in the supermarket so far are generally a bit redder than the deep purple jewels on Entius’ trees. According to the grower, a really tasty cherry is almost black in color. “Most people have an idea of how a cherry like this is in the supermarket and that is often earlier in the year,” says Entius. “These are usually cherries from Turkey or Greece. These are other varieties, which they always pick a bit redder.”
And the reason that the stem often stays on the cherry when you buy them? According to the Niedorp cherry king, you ‘injure’ the cherry when you remove the stem. “The cherry doesn’t like that and then it will rot.”
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