If there is a season that I look forward to the most for fruit it would be summer and cherries are one of my favourites. Since becoming acquainted with Yarra Valley Cherries, the premium growers of the Yarra Valley region, I now eat my weight in this delectable fruit on a daily basis for the short 7 weeks they are available.
Yarra Valley Cherries have been kind enough the past two seasons to open their factory and orchard to a select few for a behind the scenes tour. I must say, there is so much heart, soul and hard work that goes into producing quality cherries.
Here are the reasons why Yarra Valley Cherries are the best in the region:
They hand pick, grade and package their fruit all on the same property ensuring quality and freshness to their customers.
The cherries pass through a stringent grading process. Every cherry is photographed 30 times by a state of the art electronic grading machine, then sorted and packed by hand.
Sustainable farming is the goal of the passionate owners. Waste is kept to a minimum by converting the ‘unsellable’ fruit into jam or pure cold pressed cherry juice and the wood from pruning and old trees into smoking chips.
Buying from their Farm Gate in Seville is as easy as parking, paying and driving home. The hardest part is ensuring there are still cherries left when you arrive home. The staff are friendly, welcoming and informative.
If you are a numbers person chew (wink, wink) on these for a minute:
It takes 4 years for a new cherry tree to fruit
There are 40 different varieties of cherries growing on the Yarra Valley Cherries property
800 chill hours are required annually for the tree to produce premium fruit
7 million bees are brought in to pollinate the 20,000 cherry trees
1000 trees a year are turned into smoking chips.
In saying all of that the only number you need to remember is – It takes the team at Yarra Valley Cherries 1 day to pick, grade, sort and sell premium cherries to you the buyer. So fresh.
If you want to know more or order on line click here.
yarravalleylife.com 