Cherry in your garden is a great solution. The tree blooms beautifully and produces a bountiful harvest. The berries are used to make aromatic compotes and jams, and they are used for pies and dumplings. But there are few lovers of fresh berries, because they have a pronounced sourness. In fact, today many varieties of sweet cherries have been developed that any gardener can grow.
Features of sweet varieties
To make the berries sweeter, breeders crossed the usual cherries with sweet cherries. There are varieties with other origins, for example, hybrids of different types of cherries. They are characterized by the following features:
- High yield.
- Large or medium sized cherries.
- Attractive appearance of berries.
- They tolerate low temperatures in winter well.
- Suitable for central Russia.
- Easy to care for.
Sweet cherry varieties
Work to improve the characteristics of hybrids is ongoing. I would like the tree to be resistant to cold, pests and diseases, to bear fruit every year, and to have large and sweet berries. Each variety of sweet cherry has its own characteristics. The most popular among gardeners are Quirk, Cinderella, Miracle Cherry, Sevastyanovskaya, Firtash, Evans Bali. You can get acquainted with the descriptions of varieties and choose the most suitable one for your garden.
Fad
The trees are medium in size, with a dense, rounded crown. It has a high growth rate, while an adult cherry is quite compact - a maximum of 3-4 meters. From one tree they harvest 6-7 kg of crop, less often - up to 9 kg. Partially self-pollinates.
Recognized dessert variety. The berries are large, average weight 5 g. They ripen in mid-July. They have a dark red skin and pulp, and the seeds come off easily. They taste sweet. The pulp is very juicy, so Quirk is well suited for obtaining cherry juice and cooking compotes.
Cherry has average winter hardiness and tolerates autumn frosts well. Suitable for growing in central regions. Among the disadvantages is that it is sensitive to fungal diseases, in particular coccomycosis, and therefore requires regular treatment of the leaves.
Cinderella
Another medium-sized representative, the berries ripen in mid-summer. The advantages of Cinderella are high yield, 15 kg of berries are harvested from one tree, good winter hardiness and immunity to fungal diseases. The variety is completely self-pollinating.
The berries are medium-sized, 4 grams each, dark red, sweet with a slight sourness. Suitable for growing in gardens in the Moscow region.
Sevastyanovskaya
Cherry grows in the form of a bush, reaches an average height of 4 m, begins to bear fruit in the 3-4th year of life, and produces a harvest up to 16-17 years. The variety is partially self-pollinating; Rubinovaya, Uralskaya, and Tveritinovskaya cherries are used as pollinators. From the latter the Sevastyanovskaya variety was obtained.
The berries ripen in early August. They have a medium size, round shape, weigh 3.5-4 g. The taste is sweet and sour, the flesh is juicy, the seeds are easy to remove. The strengths of the variety are resistance to fungal diseases and cold. Sevastyanovskaya seedlings take root well.
Evans Bali
The low-growing, compact variety was developed in the 80s. An adult tree does not exceed 2.5 m in height, the shape of the trunk is bushy, the crown is dense. Its small size simplifies harvesting, with one bush yielding up to 15 kg of berries.
Cherries are late, ripen in August. They are large in size, 5 g each. The fruits are dark red, sweet with slight sourness, juicy and aromatic. Suitable for fresh consumption, for baby food and home preservation.
Evans Bali is suitable for cultivation in Central Russia; with proper preparation for winter, it tolerates frosts down to -40 degrees. Does not require pollinating trees in the garden.
Landing Features
For seedlings, choose sunny, windless places. Hybrids with cherries also grow in partial shade; you need to clarify the conditions for a particular variety. Trees are planted in the spring, usually in mid-April, earlier or later, depending on the weather in the spring. Planting is carried out when the soil has already warmed up, but before the buds open.
A distance of at least 3 m is left between seedlings of medium-sized cherries.
Care
Caring for sweet cherries involves forming and thinning the crown, watering, fertilizing and protecting from pests and diseases. The rules are the same as with ordinary varieties of cherries.
The crown is thinned every year to prevent it from thickening - this can lead to crushing of the berries.
Feeding begins in the second year. Organic fertilizers are applied to the soil during planting and then every 3 years, mineral fertilizers of different groups - every spring.
It is important to remove weeds from the tree trunk, especially in the first half of its life (7-10 years, depending on the variety). Once a month you need to loosen the soil in this area.
Water the trees as needed, on average 4 times a season. The berries attract birds, so at the beginning of ripening you need to take care of protection. Install a special net around the crown or an ordinary scarecrow.
