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Sweet cherries two farm stands9/22/2023 ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() But he said you can grow just about anything here if you have a high tunnel. O’Brien isn’t aware of any other commercial cherry producers in the area. And we can come in here without going across the snow to our trees that are outside,” he said. “The reason they are in here with the sweet cherries is because when we do grafting in the spring, we graft these trees for people that can come in here and see that it is doable. Pie cherry trees aren’t as sensitive to the Alaska cold as sweet cherries. (Riley Board/KDLL)Īnd not all varieties of cherry require the same growing conditions. Pie cherries at O’Brien Garden and Trees. O’Brien’s pie cherry tree is laden with fruits, which stand out as smaller and brighter than many of the other varieties in the grove. In addition to selling the fruits themselves, the farm propagates and sells whole cherry trees - including pie cherry trees, which bear more sour fruits that are used in baking. Customers can go through the high tunnel and choose the reddest, sweetest cherries themselves, leaving the under-ripe ones to finish ripening on the tree. O’Brien said one benefit to opening the cherry grove to U-Pickers is that not all cherry varieties ripen at the same time. “When people come and they want a variety, who are you to say, ‘Nope, that’s not the one you should be buying.’ If that’s what they want, then that’s what we’ll produce,” he said. But he knows they’re what customers are most likely to want. O’Brien said these aren’t the most delicious varieties he grows. The most popular varieties among customers, he said, are Bing cherries, a variety of bright red sweet cherries, and Rainier cherries, a particularly expensive variety with a yellow exterior. O’Brien, ever experimenting, said he’ll need about three years of full production to determine which cherry varieties he’ll ultimately stick with. “Each year should be better than your previous year until you get up to your maximum production.” “This is the best year that we’ve ever had, but that stands to reason,” he said. ![]() Cherries growing in O’Brien’s high tunnel. On Tuesday morning, O’Brien’s trees were lush with red, burgundy and yellow fruits. It turned out, they all did - and the plants have only been getting more productive in the years since. varieties to choose, he experimented with 50 different kinds, all at once, in the hopes he would figure out which grew best in Nikiski’s cold and windy climate. Without a blueprint of how to grow cherries in Alaska or which of the 1,000-plus U.S. O’Brien planted the first cherry trees in 2016. And it’s been so successful that this week, the farm posted a plea online for folks to come in with scissors and pick their own cherries at $9 a pound, since the farm is overgrown with the fruits. His latest challenge has been a high tunnel containing 90 cherry trees. “Once I succeed, as my children always say, ‘Dad, you just figured something out, we could actually make some money.’ Well, that isn’t my intent. That’s why O’Brien Garden and Trees in Nikiski is what he calls an experimental farm - he tries out different varieties of fruits until he figures out what works. Michael O’Brien walks down the center aisle of his high tunnel, which contains 90 cherry trees. ![]()
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