Our cherry tree has begun to blossom. It’s late by Haines standards; the trees around town get much more sunlight than ours, and bloomed a while ago. Ours pokes along and eventually flowers, but it’s no less appreciated for its tardiness.
Cherry blossoms in the “homestead” yard (Photo: Mark A. Zeiger).
Thankfully, no moose browsed the tree this year, which means we may get some cherries from it.
Cherry trees grow pretty well around Southeast Alaska. Many people say the Russians brought them and cultivated them, probably in Sitka, initially. Ours supposedly comes from that strain.
To get serious about bearing fruit, we need to get more sunshine to the tree. That’s hard, since it lies in the shadow of the tree line we depend on to break the strength of winter storms that would otherwise soak the front of the cabin with sea spray. When we’re lucky, we harvest enough cherries to make a couple of black forest-style cakes in the course of a summer. For bigger projects, like pie filling and wine, we go elsewhere. Most of the trees around fruit so prolifically that people routinely ask people to pick their trees before the bears start eating the berries, usually breaking the trees in the process. Thankfully, we don’t have that problem. The moose and porcupines cause enough damage to our tree if we’re not vigilant.