At any one picking, we're not getting a "ton" at this point; however, we are having fun with what we are getting.
Today, we picked Black Cap "Raspberries", "Regular" Raspberries, Strawberries, Mulberries, and Peas (I threw the "peas" in there just because I thought it was funny - even though we did get a meal's worth).
The Black Caps are wild and we just harvest those year after year. Same with the Mulberries (although, I don't recall as much fruit on the trees in years' past). The strawberries and "Regular" Raspberries were planted by us and are finally starting to take hold. This year is giving us a nibbler amount of fruit and we expect that next year and the year after that will give us much more.
The Cherry trees (of which we have two) are finally fruiting even though the trees are still relatively young and small. We were not sure this day would come. We planted those trees about 4 years ago and may have even had to replace one in the meantime (Ed keeps records and would be able to say so with certainty).
In planting trees, we have learned for us, that it is better to plant in fall than in the spring (at least in terms of survival rate). Historically, we have planted in the spring with some recent exceptions... This fall, we plan on replacing an apple tree that has died. We may replace it with another apple tree or we may replace it with a plumb or some other fruit tree. We have a handful of apple and a couple of pear trees that seem to be doing very well (knock on wood) such that it may make more sense to diversify at this point... We'll just have to noodle this over and talk about it between now and then (it takes us a bit of back and forth to ultimately get on the same page decision wise).
In deciding what to do with the fruit we picked today, we talked about making smoothies, we talked about making a cobbler of sorts, we talked about freezing the fruit for later use, and we talked about just eating the fruit plain. (We have plenty of jam's and jelly's to last us a couple of years yet; and, Ed will be using some of the black caps and our honey to make Mead...). Plain eating won out. Cheers!
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