Lapins Cherry
2001: Only 3 blossoms. No fruit.

2002: Lots of beautiful blossoms. Fruit ripened in mid-June, but we should have waited until cherries were very dark before picking. New branches grew 2-3 feet! Leaves are very large, and hide the fruit easily. Metallic streamers failed to keep the birds away, so we used netting (successfully)

2003: I wonder if we had enough cold days this winter to make this tree do its best. I think and hope that we did. Blossoms began in mid-March, but were apparently limited to the more mature branches and to the trunk. The newer branches are bare of blossoms. Looks like we will have fewer cherries than last year. 6/1/03: The blue jays have been feasting on the cherries. Had to put up the netting a few days ago to keep them out. In spite of that, they found a way in, so I had to cover the tree still better. Some cherries are now dark red, though many are still yellow- green. Ladybugs have protected this tree from aphids. 6/19/03: Harvested about 5 lbs. of fruit, leaving a few on the tree. Removed the netting, added metallic streamers. Cherries are very large with good flavor.

2004: 3/10/04: It looks like our crop will be small this year. The first buds are opening today, but these are leaf-buds, not blossoms. 3/16/04: The first blossoms are now open. 4/18/04: For some reason most of the blossoms failed, and we have just a handful of cherries on the entire tree. Perhaps it was an untimely rain shower that ruined the blossoms? Insufficient fertilizer?

DSCN0625.JPG 2005: 2/27/05: The first buds are starting to open today, so we are perhaps 7-10 days ahead of last year. 3/24/05: The tree was in relatively full bloom as of about a week ago, but there are still lots of unopened blossoms. I'm worried that the rain may have ruined the crop, but we'll know soon enough, I think. 4/21/05: The crop looks like it will be decent this year, though not as plentiful as the blossoms suggested. I think that the cherries will ripen over a longer period of time, because we had blossoms still opening when others had become small cherries. I'm hopeful that we'll get near 10 lbs. of fruit. Right now the largest cherries are perhaps a third the diameter of a fully-ripe cherry, so they're about as big as the fingernail on my pinkie. 5/23/05: The birds started feasting on unripe cherries, so we netted the entire tree (which wasn't easy, as the tree is so large now). I expect to have some ripe cherries by end of this week (about 5 days from now), but it appears that they will ripen over a period of several weeks rather than all at once. 5/30/05: Picked 3 pounds of cherries today. They weren't quite ripe, but wife couldn't rest until she had her cherries. They were good even though they need 3-5 more days on the tree. 6/7/05: Picked another 3 lbs of cherries, but this was about 3-4 days after we picked 15 lbs, so all told we got over 20 lbs of cherries this year. 20 lbs of organic cherries will fetch some $140 in the supermarket.

2006: 2/26/06: The buds look good, but if we hadn't had this late cold spell the prospects for a fruitful season would be very low. Hopefully the cold spell was enough. 3/28/06: The blossoms are visible, even though they have not opened yet. 4/13/06: The tree is now in full bloom, and very, very beautiful. 4/29/06: I still see new blossoms, though the prime part of the season is over. I also see lots of small green cherries. It's too early to tell if we'll have a nice crop like last year, but I think it will be at least satisfactory. 5/19/06: If all of the green cherries eventually ripen we'll have a crop nearly as good as last year. However, some are falling prematurely. As recently as a couple of days ago there were fresh blossoms on the tree. They're still in bloom as of today, but they are clearly aging. 5/30/06: The cherries are still small, about the size of a marble, but are now gaining some red color. We will likely have to net the tree next weekend. I don't expect harvest for minimum 3 weeks from now. 6/1/06: Netted the tree, as the birds were attacking anything with the smallest amount of red. Based on historical info I expect to start picking in two or three weeks. 6/21/06: We've been picking seriously since 6/18/06. So far we have 29 lbs, with several lbs. more sitting on the tree. 6/24/06: We picked again this morning, 11 lbs. Found a few rotten ones on the tree, but I must say that we've been very lucky about pests and spoilage, especially considering that these cherries have come in such dense clusters. I counted 20 cherries in a single cluster, 40 cherries spread along an 8-inch section of one branch, and I found 6 cherries on a single stem on one occasion. Our picking history is: 6/15/06: 2.5 lbs, 6/17/06: 4.5 lbs., 6/18/06: 12.5 lbs., 6/21/06: 11.5 lbs., 6/24/06: 11.0 lbs., and there are still many on the tree, perhaps 5 lbs. more. We're drying some cherries so that we can enjoy them later in the year. 7/4/06: We picked the last crop on 6/29/06, having let them ripen even more than the others. This brought our total to 46 lbs., which is a banner year that I don't expect to surpass.

DSCN0625.JPG 2007: 3/25/07: First blossoms came on about 3/12/07. Tree is in full (glorious!) bloom today. We may have a crop nearly as good as last year. 5/13/07: The cherries are turning red now. They're still kind of small, so we hope that they get a good deal larger. Aphids have been a great problem this year. It is clear that we did not adequately prune this tree last season, as the branches are too thick. 5/16/07: netted the tree to prevent birds from stealing our fruit. 5/23/07: Quite a few cherries are now dark red. I tasted a small one, and it had decent flavor. What is strange, though, is that the variation in ripeness is very great, with some cherries dark red and others perfectly green. It looks like we'll be harvesting only a few cherries at a time and that the season will be long. DSCN0625.JPG 6/9/07: We began harvesting on 6/3/07 with 9 lbs. On 6/7/07 we picked 24 lbs. By today we have picked 50 lbs. of the finest cherries that I have ever seen. Actually, the best cherries this year are better than anything we have yet seen (in our lives, not just from this tree!), but the consistency of the crop is not as high as last year. As in the past we are hard-pressed to leave them on the tree as long as we should, because the shadows of the leaves and the reflection of the sun always makes them look darker than they are. I imagine that we have at least another 10 lbs. on the tree. 6/19/07: We picked the last cherries on 6/14/07. Total crop was 72 lbs., which I find remarkable. They keep in the refrigerator for awhile, but we dried about 13 lbs., some with pits, some without. Last year's dried cherries are still very tasty.

2008: 3/13/08: First buds opened up just two days ago, but there are multiple blossoms per bud, and the blossoms should begin opening any day now. 3/14/08: The first blossoms opened today. The orchards in Gilroy were in full bloom yesterday. 3/23/08: the pods are opening up rapidly now, each pod giving birth to 3-5 blossoms. The leaves have just started coming on. 3/29/08: Some branches are completely hidden by blossoms. It's remarkable that so many blossoms have opened, yet so many more have yet to open. This tree seems always to have a long blooming season. 4/13/08: I applied some ladybugs to this tree a couple of days ago, even though I had seen no evidence of aphid infestation. The ladybugs went to work, and were obviously chomping on something. Today I found an aphid "nest", several leaves that were curled together. So, I need more ladybugs. The cherries are of varying sizes, with some about the diameter of a person's iris. 5/4/08: We still have a few blossoms that just began to fade. Last year nearly all the blossoms came on at once, and any that came later didn't become cherries. This year the blossoms came on over a long period of time, and even those that came fairly late have advanced to the small cherry size. On another subject, I ceased buying ladybugs some 2-3 weeks ago, but now everywhere I look, on the peach trees, plum tree, the lime, apple, and cherry, I find lots of ladybugs. 5/15/08: The cherries are turning color now. We had our first 100-degree day today, and will likely have another one or two like it. In past years the cherry leaves have hidden the cherries extremely well, but this year the cherries are in plain view. We had to tie a branch up today, because it's small but has lots of fruit. 6/7/08: We netted the tree on about 5/16/08 because some fruit was surely looking attractive to the birds. Four days ago we tasted a few cherries and found them good, but not quite ripe. Yesterday we picked nearly a pound, a few of which were quite good. We also tied up a few more branches that looked about to break. Still we have a number of cherries that have just begun to get any color and remain mostly green. Harvest time for this tree usually lasts 10-15 days, but this year it might be closer to 20. 6/22/08: We've already picked 50 lbs. of fruit, which exceeds our earlier expectations. Harvest began on 6/6/08, and will continue for a few more days. As usual, the cherries are irresistible even before they're ripe. They are supposed to be nearly black when ripe, but we unfortunately rarely allow them to fully ripen. 6/25/08: On 6/23 we went out to pick the last cherries from the tree, but there were so many, some hiding under the leaves, that we couldn't pick them all. That's one thing I like about this tree... the leaves are so big and numerous that they cover the cherries and make picking like a game of hide and seek. This season is both the latest we've ever had cherries still on the tree, and the longest time between first and last pickings. We cleaned out the tree today, for a total of 71.5 lbs, only slightly shy of last year's record of 73 lbs.

2009: 3/26/09: First buds opened up over two weeks ago. Now we have a good start on the blossoms, with many clusters yet to open. I don't expect a dense crop this year, but I do expect some dense clusters. Fed the tree a fertilizer spike. 4/23/09: Two days ago I observed that one entire branch had simply wilted, all the way back to where the branch joined the tree. Not sure what happened, but I know that this happened just after a very hot day, and I know that I was a couple of days late in watering the tree. The fruit has set for most of the tree, even though there are still unopened blossoms all over. I think that the tree was confused by the continuing cold nights, so didn't want to commit to opening all blossoms at once. 5/9/09: A good deal of fruit is being spontaneously aborted. How sad. I saw yesterday some fresh blossoms, though of course nothing will result from that. I'm now estimating that we'll get only 25 lbs of fruit this year. On 5/6/09 we planted a second Lapin cherry to keep this one company. 70 lbs of cherries in the last two seasons isn't enough, but if we have poor years like this one again, then even two trees will give less than 70 lbs. 5/23/09: I noticed first color on the cherries about 10 days ago, so I netted the tree about a week ago. 6/11/09: We picked 2 lbs of cherries yesterday, after picking a handful several days earlier. They are good, though not many are completely ripe. I must confess that I finally understand the meaning of "lust". Every time I walk by the cherry tree I look at all the beautiful red and dark red cherries and can only think of satisfying my desire for fresh cherries. I also picked the single cherry from our newest tree, and it tasted OK. Hopefully we'll see a few pounds of cherries from that tree next year. Imagine, if you will, one day a few years from now when both cherry trees are producing heavily, and we pick 140 lbs in a single season! 6/14/09: We picked 17 lbs today. Unfortunately, the pest damage is more obvious this year than in years past. As well, we found one cluster of 10 cherries that was completely lost to mold. This, I presume, thanks to the cooler weather we've had. 6/23/09: Picked the last cherries today, for a total of 47 lbs! Our pessimism about the crop size was unwarranted. We also did better this year than most about waiting until the cherries were quite dark before picking, with many exceptions, of course.

2010: 6/12/10: We've had a very wet and cool Spring. Last weekend we picked a handful of cherries that weren't quite ripe. For weeks now we've been finding moldy or split or otherwise spoiled cherries and plucking them. The clusters are dense, so one rotten cherry can spoil 10 or 20 others quite easily. We'll pick some ripe cherries tomorrow, but we still have many that are completely and perfectly light green. We've also observed pest damage, and much to our surprise we've observed ladybugs munching on some cherries. We netted our smaller Lapin cherry tree last weekend after some finches taste-tested about five cherries. The younger Lapin began blooming about 2 weeks or more after the large one, but we hope to get a few pounds off of it this year. Thanks to its later development it suffered less damage from splitting and mold. However, due to the later development I'm slightly suspicious that it's not a Lapin. We'll know fairly soon, perhaps in two to three weeks. 6/13/10: 19 lbs. 6/18/10: 1.5 lbs. 6/19/10: 5.25 lbs. 6/20/10: 26.5 lbs. 6/23/10: 5.0 lbs. 6/26/10: 2.0 lbs. 6/27/10: 11.25 lbs. Total: 65.5 lbs. Young cherry tree: 6/23/10: 3.5 lbs. Grand total: 69.0 lbs.

2011: 3/14/11: I observed the first couple of blossoms on 3/12/11. These appeared on the larger of the two trees. It's not yet clear how big this season will be, but we're hoping that the two trees combined produce over 70 lbs. of fruit. The orchards in Gilroy are in full bloom, and were well along even as early as a week ago. This timing for our trees is very much in line with past years. 5/22/11: We covered both Lapins with nets last weekend, figuring to get a jump on the birds. We have quite a few red cherries by now, but many of them are dying prematurely, while some others are splitting due to the recent rains. I picked a handful of cherries on about 6/6/11, but they weren't ripe. We picked about 25 lbs. yesterday, from the large tree alone, bringing our total crop this year to 99 lbs from one tree, eclipsing the previous record of 73 lbs. by a landslide. The younger tree has produced over 7 lbs. so far, and as usual ripens later than the older tree. At $7 per lb. in the supermarket we've collected over $700 worth of fruit from cherries alone. 6/12/11: 5.5 lbs. 6/15/11: 8.5 lbs. 6/16/11: 4.0 lbs. 6/19/11: 34.0 lbs. 6/22/11: 21.0 lbs. 6/25/11: 25.0 lbs. 7/1/11: 5.5 lbs. total: 103.5 lbs. Young Cherry: 6/22/11: 3.5 lbs. 6/25/11: 4.0 lbs. 6/27/11: 4.5 lbs. total: 12.0 lbs. Grand total: 115.5 lbs.

2012: 3/5/12: Nothing very close to opening on either of the trees. Some trees in Gilroy have been in bloom for 2 weeks already. 3/13/12: The small Lapin tree saw its first blossom open yesterday. We're expecting rain soon, but I think that the cherry trees will not suffer, because the rain will be past before a substantial number of blossoms have opened. On 3/10/12 I sprayed both cherry trees with Neem oil (Schultz 3-in-1 fungicide) in hopes of killing any bugs or disease that may be present. 5/20/19: The small Lapin has quite a good crop on it, though they are small in size. We netted the tree yesterday because we expect birds to begin sampling anytime soon. The large tree has a great amount of fruit on it, but this fruit varies from pale green and very small, to a light red at medium size. I've never seen the tree abort/lose so much fruit as it has this year. Our late rains from February to late April confused the tree so that it had no clue as to when its fruit might be able to successfully ripen. We have some fruit clusters of perhaps 100 cherries in the space that you would hope to find 20 full-sized fruits, so I'm sure we'll either have a very small average size this year, or we'll see considerably more self-thinning. The younger Lapin cherries are not reaching full size. The tree bloomed several days prior to the large one, and looked to be in good shape, but has not lived up to its promise. Its leaves are not as large as on the more mature tree, and I wonder if this is due to maturity level or is an indication that the young Lapin is not really Lapin a all. 6/7/12: The birds are extremely aggressive about eating cherries even through the net. I've never seen them this hungry or bold. We taste-tested some cherries today, a few of which were reasonably good. Some cherries remain completely light green at this time. The young cherry tree has very small cherries. 6/7/11: 1.5 lbs.