It’s chokecherry season and my two little trees were loaded. I took these photos about a week ago. The red cherries were just about ripe. I was hoping they would hang on until this weekend as I was traveling out of town and could not pick them at their peak. Well, I guess they peaked because the tree was stripped bare by the time I got back to it. The birds didn’t leave me a single cherry.

The golden chokecherries, however, were just hitting their peak of ripeness. I picked 5.6 pounds off of that one little tree I have. A pretty good harvest that will net me a good gallon or so of golden chokecherry wine. Golden or yellow chokecherries are quite rare in North Dakota and I was happy to discover that this one tree was yellow. Unfortunately that tree is battling black knot fungus and will probably succumb like all the chokecherries around it in another year or so. I hope to take some cuttings when the wood goes dormant and try to root some yellow cherry starts. I’ll plant them far away from the shelter belt that is inundated with that damn black knot.