Orchard People

Hi everyone. Welcome to the show today. It's springtime and so many of us are dreaming about what we're going to do with our gardens this year. And we're also shopping. Shopping for seeds, for tools, and for plants that might just fit into that one corner of our already over planted urban garden.
in the program today we're going to be exploring an option for gardeners, like me, who want to grow more fruit in their yard but just don't have a lot of space left. So let's say you want a cherry tree in your garden and you don't have the space. maybe you do have space for a compact cherry shrub.
[00:00:46] Exploring Compact Cherry Shrubs with Dr. Bob Bors
In a minute, we're going to talk to Dr. Bob Bors, the head of the University of Saskatchewan's Fruit Program, who developed and introduced the Romance Series of Dwarf Cherries. Now, these cherry shrubs can be very productive, so what are you going to do with all those cherries? That was a problem Dr. Bors' wife Loretta faced.
Her solution? It was to work with some friends on developing the world's most extensive cherry cookbook. They called it Cooking with Cherries from the Prairies. And we're going to talk to her today too.
[00:01:24] TreeMobile Project with Virginie Gysel
But let's start off today with Virginie Gysel, the founder of the TreeMobile project here in Ontario.
Her quest is to bring high quality fruiting plants to Ontario gardens. And she's in the studio with me today. Virginie, can you tell me a little bit about TreeMobile? What is it all about? Hi, Susan. we, sell fruits and trees online, the plants, and in spring, we deliver them or have them picked up by groups of happy volunteers.
That sounds good, but how is it different, like, why shouldn't people go to, I don't know, Canadian Tire or something and pick up their plants there? not to, say anything about Canadian Tire, but they're often amateurs taking care of those plants. and they really don't have a very good selection, and most of the plants they have are very conventional.
They're not suited for organic farming, which most of us want to do. So we provide a much wider selection and the trees are in better shape. They're bare root, they're, you get them the next day and you plant them and you've got fruit for years to come. Now let's talk about bare root trees. Why is it better?
What does it look like? If I'm your client and I'm going to get a tree, I guess it just doesn't arrive in a pot like it would in the garden centre. Tell me a little bit about what that feels like for a client. It's a very big stick. with a few branches and roots on the end. The reason we use bare root is because the, when you're, when trees are grown in a pot, the roots tend to girdle.
They go around in circles. Whereas at the bare root tree, you get more of the root. and it's the natural shape that the root wants to be. you just need a little more care when planting, but your, tree is going to have a better foundation to get started. and some of our trees are actually quite tall.
The plums can be as high as 10 or 11 feet. So I guess it delivery has to be linked to a certain time of year. There is an urgency, with bare root trees. And I know that you guys have a deadline for ordering, I think. when is it that people have to order by and when will these trees be delivered?
I think we're going to stay open until middle of April. but after that, we have to plan the routes, make sure everybody's orders are available. just get them all booked at the nursery. And we have to organize the volunteers. So it's a volunteer run project. How is that possible?
Because we're just really nice people. There you go. And really hard working. It's a lot of work. There's a real sense of urgency for starting to grow our own fruit. obviously right now there's the price of fruit. But we've been running, this is our sixth year, and that wasn't really an issue before.
I think people are just tired of paying a premium for organic fruit, and especially not knowing where it comes from, or seeing that it comes from, Peru, or Brazil, or New Zealand. Why does Canada need to get apples from New Zealand? Absolutely. This is apple country. So it's really a way of encouraging people to just give it a try.
Absolutely, and we have things in all sizes, from the cherry shrubs, we carry some of the cherry shrubs we're going to talk about later. even really small things like asparagus, which are beautiful plants, they're actually quite decorative, and of course in spring you get your very own asparagus. We had one buyer who said, I didn't realize they grew here.
Really? Isn't that something? Wow. I remember growing up picking our own asparagus. Oh my gosh. So there's an educational component to it as well. Now full disclosure here. I work with Virginie and we do a wonderful, basically a competition, for community gardens and community orchards to apply and Virginie gives them free trees.
And I contribute the fruit tree care education. So we work together on that. And this year there were a lot, there was a lot of interest, wasn't there? Oh yes, we had 13 entries. And a few came in, but they were late, so we couldn't accept them. So these are fabulous projects in the areas that Virginie and the TreeMobile team deliver their plants, their trees.
And, we so want to encourage people to experiment and to learn about fruit trees. Now Virginie, we are going to come back and we're going to talk some more, but just in case right now people are at their computer and they want to just Google Treemobile, what, what website should they go to? It's TransitionTreemobile.
org. TransitionTreemobile. org. So if you are listening on the internet, as I'm sure all of you are, and you want to Google that, TransitionTreemobile. org, check it out. Now, the two of us, I think, can I speak for both of us, that were very curious to talk to Dr. Bob Bors. Because we both are nurturing and caring for these cherry shrubs that he has helped to develop.
So he's going to come on the line and, Dr. Bors, are you on the line now? Yes, I am. Welcome. It's so great to hear your voice. We've gotten to know your babies over here. You have, you have cherry shrub babies here in Toronto. I'm, sure you have them many, in many places around the world.
[00:06:38] The History of the Romance Series of Cherries
can you tell me a little bit about the history of the Romance Series of Cherries?
How did it all, how did it all begin? it started probably 1940. By a, a breeder called Les Kerr. And he started breeding these cherries against the wishes of the federal government. He was supposed to be breeding, Shelter Bell trees. But he was breeding cherries in secret and sending them out to farmers.
And he did that for about 40 years. And then when he was actually on his deathbed, he called in the fruit breeder from the University of Saskatchewan. and told him which farms had his best cherries and told him they should start breeding them. one of my predecessors visited these farms and they dug up the best plants and brought them to the university and started breeding a new generation.
what was his goal initially? are there not enough cherry tree varieties out there in the world that we need to develop some more? What were his goals? there were no, the only cherry that was growing in Saskatchewan that was related was called the Mongolian cherry. And it had the cherry smaller than a dime.
Like it was half pit, half cherry, and very sour. So he was crossing that to, European cherries and just trying to get something better. And he got them up to about the size of a penny. But they were still sour. But the next, couple of generations, we got flavor into them. So how, did you do that?
Just by cross, when you say crossing, can you describe the process? you gather pollen from one, one plant, and then you, when the other flowers are not quite open, you cut off all the anthers and put the pollen of the one you want to be the dad onto it. And cherries, it's rather, it's very slow and tedious, because You do all this work on each flower and then you just get one seed and you probably need a couple thousand to get a really good thing.
Wow. So it took, it sounds like it was a 60 year process. Yeah. It was like when I got here, the generation, the more recent generation was almost kind of fruit. And then when it did fruit. We were able to find which ones were the best ones. Now, when you say the best ones, were they the best of the bunch or were they great?
actually, I thought they were great, but I was new to the province, and I was, I went to an international cherry conference, which was in Oregon, and to my shock, as a new professor, They put me as the first speaker after the keynote speaker because they couldn't believe anyone in Saskatchewan was growing any cherries at all.
And actually later on the big textbook on cherries, research textbook, it lists Saskatchewan and every state and province that touches it as you don't grow cherries there. I got up there and my, attitude was I'm going to go there. I'll probably get embarrassed. But maybe somebody will tell me what I did wrong, or what we're doing not so good.
And, I was shocked to find the next speaker started his talk, he was from, I think, Denmark or something. He said, Our cherry, sour cherries aren't as big as sweet as Saskatchewan cherries, but And the guy next to me said, The Saskatchewan cherries are the hit of the conference. Wow. So for 60 years, they bred them here, but they never really appreciated them.
That's amazing. Something was better in BC, I think. Now, a lot of our listeners are in the United States. They're in all over. So they think, oh, why is Saskatchewan such a challenging place to grow cherries? What's the big deal? we have minus 40 every pretty much every winter all the last few years.
It's only been minus 35. the variety of the Mongolian cherry, which is really a relative of the sour cherry. it was the only is really a short bush. And we had to use that in breeding to make the plants hardy. But we, Unintentionally developed cherries that are really short, that are more bushes than trees.
And that's actually something that the fruit world's been trying to do in many tree fruits, like apples are usually planted on dwarf rootstocks. Cherries being on their own roots and dwarf was also a big breakthrough. That is a huge breakthrough. Yeah, no grafting necessary in order to reproduce them, Yeah, and if you really, we had a minus 50 winter one year. And it knocked down some of the trees, but not completely, and, they came back. not that anyone else is going to get minus 50, but I saw online, do you, call them dwarf trees? Because they look like shrubs to me, but I've seen them referred to as dwarf trees.
some propagators are training them like trees, and they really shouldn't. They really should train them as bushes with many stems coming from the bottom. And, because those old branches eventually want to get renewed. And actually, it's much simpler to train them as a bush because what you do is you look at the bottom of your tree and every few years you take out some of the bigger branches and let the little ones grow up and renew the tree.
Like a blueberry, for instance, like blueberry pruning. Yeah, blueberries and they do black currants that way. And, it just makes it, it's actually much easier to train than trying to make it a single trunk. Yeah, maybe it's sturdier as well because you don't just have one trunk. So you've got, one breaks in the wind, you've got a bunch more to, to rely on.
Yeah, I had a conversation on the internet actually with some people who are growing These shrubs and some people are like, oh, we love them. I'm so excited and other people said oh, they're not that productive Like what expectations should people have in terms of how much fruit you get out of each shrub?
I think a lot of it has to do with pollination, right whether you have enough bees because even though They can pollinate themselves. The pollen doesn't float in the air. They have to have bees on the trees. And they're, doing major studies of cherries in Saskatchewan, and I think they're, doing a full blown one this summer.
But one place they found that flies were pollinating them more than bees. At the University, since we've been growing fruit for almost a hundred years, We have seven or eight species of wild bees around our place, so ours always get well pollinated. But some of the people planting them out in the country that maybe don't have many, fruit trees, the pollinators don't know they're there yet.
So what about the name? You guys came up with such a great, name. It's the Romance Series, Romeo, Juliet, Cupid, Valentine, Crimson Passion. Who came up with that idea? actually, we had, a contest for our, the, the nurseries that were selling our plants to come up with names. And, Paul Hammer of the Sassoon Farm in Calgary came up with the idea of the Love Series, but that sounded a little too 70 ish.
It sounded like my early teenage years, right? And he had a couple of those names in there, like Cupid and maybe Valentine. And then talking about with other propagators, I think one of the local ones in Saskatoon said, romance sounds much more classy. And we latched on to that. We said, yeah, that sounds really good.
I think it's terrific. I know that one thing that listeners are going to want to know is how do they taste? Do these taste like regular cherries? Do they look like regular cherries? most people are more familiar with sweet cherries, which are the big, big ones you find in the grocery store with the stems on them, right?
And the sour cherry, though, is much better for cooking. It's like almost all the cherry drinks, all the pies, the dried cherries, almost all of those are always sour cherries. And sour cherries is a little misleading because sour cherries can be just as sweet cherries, but they have more acidity.
if you process a sweet cherry, it's really only good in ice cream. you don't want to cook with it. Loretta can tell you more about that. the sour cherry is what really gives food a nice punch to it. they're actually the regular size of sour cherries. Because there's a standard pitting machine in the world, and we have to make our cherries fit that pitting machine.
Although, our one variety, Cupid, tends to make Cherries bigger than a pitting machine can take. It's good to know for those of us who want big cherries. We don't, and don't have pitting machines. I guess another reason they look different is, see, in the U. S. and most of Canada, we're used to a bright red cherry.
But the Europeans think those are disgusting. And they like the dark black cherries or dark burgundy. And, for improved breeding stock, we went, the parent we crossed to the less cursed stuff, was northern European gourmet type cherries, and they're all dark. all of our cherries are pretty dark, except valentine is more red.
Are they growing it in Europe? Are they growing these shrubs? Are they growing these we're here in Canada? Have they gone to the United States? our first variety has snuck over to Europe and is being sold. But we're about to release some more cherries. in Europe, they're getting virus certified right now.
So we have some more lined up. People are always emailing me from Europe. And they are very excited about it. Ours do taste really nice. So I think there will be a big hit there. One of the top cherry nurseries in Europe is the guy putting ours through virus free certification. And what about the states?
I had an email from Megan McGuire from Minnesota, and she says, Wow, I've never heard of these shrubs. I want to buy them. Where can I get them in the United States? there is a company that Gurney's and Henry Fields have them, and the parent company to them is, trying to get, how to mass propagate them.
They weren't really a tissue culture company that can make varieties really quick, but, they're working on it. getting closer.
/ So Bob, I really, I want to get into more details in a minute about how to choose these cherries, how to grow them successfully.
[00:19:33] Growing and Caring for Cherry Shrubs
And I know that a lot of the listeners, many people like Virginie and I, we've started to, we've planted some of these shrubs and we're caring for them, but really, can you give us a bit of a summary of what type of care is involved? In order to maximize fruit production. some of the common things in the backyard is, you want your plant to have well drained soil and lots of sunshine. So if it's partially shaded, I always say if it, however much shade it gets is how much fruit you're not going to get.
if it's shaded one fourth a day, you'll probably have a little bit less than normal. But, cherries tend not to like sitting in water. they, it could be okay for a little bit during the spring thaw, but if they sit in drowning in water for a week or two, then they start to suffer. but they need only moderate amounts of fertilizer, like compost.
In the prairies, I tell people when in doubt, don't fertilize. Really? Because the soil is so nutritious, or? Yeah, because the prairie soils tend to be deep and rather rich. And if you fertilize too much in a cold climate, and your plant is still growing into fall, you're probably going to get winter damage.
One of my favorite tricks are Tips to tell people is go out on the first frost and see if your plants are still making new leaves. And if they are, you're in trouble. It's too late then. Part of the trouble could be that you fertilized too much late in the season. Like you should be doing it in spring.
Or you pruned late. Or sometimes you have a drought during the summer. And then you start watering late summer. And then the plant wakes up and wants to grow more. It would have been better if you had watered a little bit more earlier, so they weren't so thrilled to get any moisture. what about pruning?
we talked about it, we touched upon it. What would you say the pruning strategy is? we like to use, a reciprocal saw. that's a real narrow blade. And, just, we just cut off, the oldest branches at the base. And, we actually We're usually growing them in rows, right? They'll send underground, they'll have root buds, right?
So they might, we've selected ones that don't make as many root buds as other trees, but they still make some. So you can have your tree get whiter over time and actually, some of the daughters that come out a little ways away from the original bush, Can be better in a few years than the mother bush. So they're essentially suckers.
Are they not what is the difference? Suckers usually arise with there's rhizomes which sends out a shoot from the main plant that then comes up But cherries don't do that. They actually do a root that makes a bud show up So a saskatoon berry does suckers Or you could also so many people also call suckers can come up at the base of the plant that I'm Cherries can come out from the roots.
So is it like a raspberry where they just spread and spread? botanically it's like a raspberry, but they're nowhere near like a raspberry. raspberries can take over your whole, whole backyard. In fact, Loretta's been battling our raspberries in the backyard for as long as we've lived here.
But, cherries, if you keep them well pruned, they're usually not much of a problem. Okay, but if you want them to spread, they can. Yeah, or you might leave a space, a meter on either side of it that you would like a wider bush. Okay, wow. that's serious spreading. That's good.
You buy one bush and you can get three bushes worth. Yeah. no, I don't know. This may be wishful thinking. We have a serious problem here in Toronto with a bacterial canker in cherry trees, like they just use the stuff all over, it spreads from tree to tree. So here's my dream. My dream is that these little cherry shrubs are immune to it.
Am I living in fantasy or is it actually true? you're, you shouldn't be thinking of absolutes. Now, they did a trial for, in Michigan with the cherries that were available at the time and they said ours were more resistant than the average variety, but they still get.
[00:24:58] Managing Bacterial Canker in Shrubs
bacterial canker once in a while.
I guess we've seen it in our fields, but it's hardly ever present. But Michigan would be a better test. I guess the thing is that again, if it's a shrub, so it's not a single stem. The real problem is if the canker gets into the actual trunk, then you have to cut down the whole tree if you want to stop it.
But if it's a shrub, so you cut off the branches that are diseased and you dispose of them carefully and it's manageable. I would think. Yeah.
[00:25:29] Sanitizing Tools: Lysol vs. Bleach
And the thing to do if you do have canker is to, sanitize your saw after each cut. And what we, this brings up another favorite hint of mine is we've, I don't like bleach cause it'll get all over your clothes or burn your hands and stuff.
We use Lysol. We like, buy that spray bottle of Lysol and you just spray that on your. on your saw, and, that's a better sanitizer, or less likely to ruin your clothes. Yeah, usually I use And your nostrils. I use rubbing alcohol, but saws, I'm always baffled. How do I wipe this clean without ripping my, the cloth that I'm cleaning with?
So I guess sometimes a spray bottle sounds like a really good option. Lysol. Wow. I remember that stuff. so would Lysol be considered an organic option? I don't know. I don't know, but it's not like you're really putting it in the system. You're just cleaning, right? So you would clean your tools with something, like a detergent and that wouldn't.
It isn't something you're putting on your plant either.
[00:26:44] Cherry Tree Diseases: Black Knot and More
What about black knot, cherry rot? Does it get all the other stuff that cherry trees get? I thought cherries never got black knot. But I was in, in Ontario last year and they showed me an Evans cherry tree that looked like it had it. But Evans is not as hearty as ours.
And it's the only time I've ever seen it. Now, I have seen and it's the Evans Prairie again, in, Nova Scotia. It actually had black bacterial canker, but then a fungus was growing on top of it. So it looked like black knot at first, but then when you picked at it, it had, that, orangey oozed, dried sap underneath.
I guess in Saskatchewan, I guess you don't even have the problem of black knot. Can it survive those cold winters? Oh, we have it horribly in our choke cherries. Oh, okay. Yeah. But, they, but sour cherries are supposed to be immune to that, but I did see that one time. But I'm still wondering what, if it's really what they say it is, but.
Now, just one more question. I'm going to hand it over, actually, to Vijini in a minute. But, How, they are cold hardy, so that's amazing.
[00:28:15] Growing Cherries in Different Climates
But what if you want to grow these in California? Do they need the cold in order to thrive? Where, can you grow these plants? Yeah, you there is, there was research done with apples that you might be able to grow the northernmost apples in the southern locations because they don't need as much dormancy requirements, but I, people have sent me, they grew some of these cherries in Las Vegas and they were two feet high and fruiting, but I don't think they only had one when they didn't really have a winter yet.
So I think it was really iffy. I would think you might be able to go halfway down the U S but I'm not sure. we'll have to, if any of the listeners, have tried that, anybody who's listening to the podcast later, I'd love to hear, how things are going. You can always email me at info at orchard people dot com.
So wherever you're growing these shrubs, we, I'd love to hear how it's going. And I know that there's a Facebook conversation about it going on right now, even as we speak, which I will look at after the show. But, I'm virtually.
[00:29:31] Community Orchard Insights
You, you have your own community orchard that you started in a local churchyard, and I know that I know because I've been there that you have the same problem that I have, that there's so much, so many trees and you just want to keep squeezing stuff in, you have, at least one of, Dr.
Bora's cherries in there. How, are you doing with that? How is it going? It's great. It's been, oh, sorry. It fruited in the first year, which was really exciting. But the fruit was strange. It was red right away, but a little bit hard. And then I realized it just has to ripen. So I had to wait till it became a little more translucent.
And then I had my first shrub cherry and it was delicious. I have never cooked one. They just never get into the house. That's interesting. So that's the problem. You can grow them, but cooking with them might be iffy if you eat them all in the garden. That's the problem. I have a question.
[00:30:29] Birds and Cherries: A Surprising Observation
for Bob, how do you find birds are with these cherries versus cherry trees? Because it was so red and inviting. I was sure that it would be gone to the birds, but they didn't seem to understand that it was a cherry. Whereas our regular cherry trees got attacked by the birds. So do you find it's a little more bird proof?
we don't, we have so many fruits at the University that the birds don't like it very much. Poor you. They actually, birds prefer berries that are more bite sized. True. so a cherry they'd have to peck through. I have heard of gardeners having it, but maybe if you have a community orchard you have other little berries around that they would rather be eating.
But I have heard of people netting the cherries once in a while. I think in an urban environment, the poor birds have such limited choice that they're a little more interested in our fruits than in yours, I also wonder, would you, mind recommending what would be the best for a small urban garden?
[00:31:38] Best Cherry Varieties for Urban Gardens
we, were selling Cupid and, I think Valentine. but I wonder if there's one you, think is especially suited to urban conditions. Cupid and Valentine are among the slightly larger of our trees. Crimson Passion is the very smallest, and it doesn't sucker very much, and it's a lot smaller than the other ones.
But, for us, it's it had died back on our minus 50 year, but, it would be two thirds the size of the other ones. Many people think it's too small. But the one that people like the best for flavor is Romeo. Ah. But we're talking, maybe talking hairs. I don't know. Connoisseurs visiting us, trying all the cherries, agree that Romeo tastes the best.
But Romeo Also tends to produce earlier than the other ones, like earlier as in a year earlier, like it makes more, it might take four years for the average cherry growing under really good conditions to be producing a lot of cherries or five and Romeo might do that in the third year. So I, I would go.
In southern Ontario, I would try those two out. But the valentine is like a nice, beautiful, is the red one. If you wanted to make dried cherries, that one looks beautiful when it gets dried. because the other ones would look like raisins, and that one would look like a cherry. And how, high does the biggest plant get?
for us, and Eye tractors, when they start growing, when they start fruiting, they don't grow very fast. they only grow a couple inches a year. and, at the University of Saskatchewan, they're usually two to two and a half meters tall, and I've seen an extra half meter at other sites. But that would be if you didn't really prune them.
if you pruned it, you could keep it down to, two meters would be nice. Because then it's easy to pick it. And that's a perfect size for a, for an urban lot. Yeah, oh, definitely. And you can keep them smaller if you want. Yeah.
[00:34:17] Cooking with Cherries: An Award-Winning Cookbook
I'm gonna, we're going to take a few minutes again to listen to, some messages from our sponsors, but after the break, we have a treat coming up.
when you're harvesting a lot of cherries, you really need to get creative and find a way to prepare them other than just eating them fresh. Bob, hold on the line or pass the phone over to Loretta, your wife, who is the co author of an award winning cherry cookbook. called Cooking with Cherries from the Prairies.
You're listening to the Urban Forestry Radio Show brought to you by the Community Orchard Network. I'm Susan Poizner, and this is Reality Radio 101. We'll be back with Bob, Loretta, in just a moment.
Where am I? This place is amazing. There are birds, bees, and fruit trees, and I'm in the middle of a big city.
[00:35:26] Philadelphia Orchard Project: Greening the City
You are in Philadelphia. Our city is growing more beautiful each year thanks to the Philadelphia Orchard Project. We plant fruit trees, berry bushes, and other edibles in city parks, gardens, and other public places.
I can see that. Raspberry canes, fig trees, and peaches. If I lived nearby, I would never go hungry. That's one of our goals. We want to help communities grow their own food by teaching residents how to plant fruit trees and care for them. We focus on the neighborhoods that need it most. It sounds like a great project.
How can I help? How can I learn more? Please visit our website at phillyorchards. org to volunteer or donate. And you can also follow our urban orchard blog phillyorchards. org I will definitely check it out. Thanks so much, and have a great day. This message was brought to you by the Philadelphia Orchard Project.
[00:36:36] Lilyleaf Solutions: Connecting People with Nature
Enjoying the cool breeze under the shade of a tree. Picking apples and berries from your local community orchard. Jumping in a pile of leaves. You can do all these activities and more when you connect with nature where you live. Lilyleaf Solutions works to connect people with quality parks, trails, trees, and orchards near them.
Through technical expertise and data driven strategic planning, Lilyleaf Solutions empowers urban residents to become advocates for nature in their community. When we all have access to quality nature, we all progress together. Lilyleaf Solutions Empowerment Together. Follow us on Twitter at Lilyleaf and visit us at Lilyleaf. com today.
I threw a wish in the well, don't ask me, I'll never tell. I looked at you as it fell, and now you're in my way. I trade my soul for a wish, penny in the Welcome back.
[00:37:42] Back to the Show: Urban Forestry Radio
Welcome to the Urban Forestry Radio Show with your host, Susan Poizner, right here on Reality Radio 101. Contact us live right now. Send us an email.
Reality Radio 101 at yahoo. com.
And now, right back to your host, Susan Poizner. Hi, I'm Susan Poizner and you're listening to the Urban Forestry Radio Show brought to you by the Community Orchard Network. This is a program where we learn about fruit trees, food forests, permaculture, and lots more. Thanks for tuning in. Today in the studio, we have Virginie Gysel of Transition Treemobile, a volunteer powered fruit tree selection and delivery service here in Ontario.
And on the line until now, we've been chatting with Dr. Bob Boers, head of the fruit tree breeding program at the University of Saskatchewan. He's been talking about the Romance Series of Cherries, cherry shrubs that can be grown in cold climates and in small spaces. But as we know, no ice cream sundae is ever complete without the cherry on top.
[00:39:04] Interview with Loretta Bors: Cherry Recipes and More
And today that cherry is our chat with Loretta Bors. Loretta is Bob's wife, and over the years she's become quite good at cooking with cherries. So she and a few friends got together and wrote Cooking with Cherries in the Prairies, a cookbook that earned an international award and is said to be the biggest cherry cookbook ever written.
Hi Loretta, are you on the line? Yes, I am. Hi, so nice to speak to you. Hi, nice to talk to you, too. So you have to tell me, how did your cherry cookbook project begin?
[00:39:41] Cherry Cookbook: From Idea to Reality
Bob and I were out on this rural farm, and we were talking to this farmer, and he showed us his Cherry Bush, and it was just overflowing with cherries, and it was just beautiful, and I said, wow, how lucky you are, and he looked at me like I was an alien that landed from another planet, and he says, what do you mean, and I says, you've got all these cherries.
And he says, Yeah, I feed them to the pigs. I'm from Ontario, and we're used to dealing with sour cherries. And so for me, it was like, I've got to introduce this wonderful fruit, or help to introduce it to people who don't know how to cook with it. Yes. And they're not as familiar as we are in Ontario with them in Saskatchewan.
Let's put it this way. I eat fresh cherries. Of course, I know, not that I'm a good baker or anything, there's cherry crumble and cherry pie, but how many different recipes for cherry crumble and cherry pie can you dream up? we came up with 371 recipes, and they're not just cherries.
They are, they include different meat juice, meat, Recipes and sauces and juices. how can like what? Give me an example. What's a meat recipe that would integrate? Some beautiful cherries in it. one of the ones that, Cease came up with was called Dinosaur Bones. And it's just basically ribs with this cherry barbecue and the cherries just really bring out the flavor in the barbecue.
In the barbecue sauce, it's really wonderful. And then there are others where, we're doing, we're trying to do it with salads. Like we, we developed these, salad dressings for cherries. And oh, where the cherries are as part of the dressing or where the, dressing goes on top of the cherries.
A little bit of both. Ha, because a lot of it we did put it in the vinegarette, like we came up with this cherry vinegarette. And we also like, I like taking dried cherries and just sprinkling them on top of salads just to get, offset that flavor a little bit.
[00:41:58] Drying Cherries: Tips and Techniques
Will you dry the cherries at home? Do you have a dehydrator or something that you use?
Yes. Yes. I've dehydrated them before. they take a little bit of work, but they're wonderful. Wonderful. And they're good in fruit salads and different, regular vegetable salads and just, I like just eating them as a snack. And I've made granola with them too. Yummy. Yeah, I got a dehydrator once and we were playing around with it.
It just, it took forever. Nothing ever really dried. Just took too long. You really have to have a lot of patience. I have a gas oven, so it's easier for me to dry in the oven than it is in the dehydrator on some things that have a high liquid level. So what temperature would you, Put the cherries or, whatever in.
I'm doing it around 225. And then you leave it for how long? probably about 6 to 8 hours, depending on the size of the cherries. Yeah, dried cherries would be great. That I can see. Sprinkling them on green salads and, that would be yummy. Like cranberries, or even raisins I put on salads sometimes.
Now, when you guys started this project, had you and your colleagues ever written a book before? No. I, one of us, one of us had actually participated, but we had never actually done this. we come from various backgrounds. I'm an accountant. Cease is an ex school teacher. Will has run her own business.
So it's, not like any of us have done this. We were just very enthusiastic. Lil's husband works with Bob, Cease is actually, one of the master gardeners. So we're all really motivated to do this and just to get, the idea of you can cook with these. So was Bob bringing you guys, home like big bunches of the different, varieties of cherries or do you, are you using ones you grow in your own yard?
he was bringing them home, but we were also growing them in our own yards. Okay, so you had a whole bunch to choose from, and did you find a difference with the different varieties, Romeo versus Juliet, for instance, as varieties to, to dehydrate, or did you find some were stronger in pies and some were better in solids?
We found basically that if we just blended the different varieties, we got more of a flavor out of it. it's too difficult to try to cook with just one variety because it, depending on like when they would come in. So we couldn't just. Some of them would be riper and some of them wouldn't, so if we just blended them together, we got a better result.
Now, it's a charity cookbook, right? Or is it raising money for something? It's a charity cookbook, but it is raising money for the university's plant science department to get students and to do further research. And where do people find it? you can get it online from the University of Saskatchewan.
The bookstore at the university. Okay, so listeners will be able to And also, locally, some of the local vendors have them here. if they want to, yeah, I think the best bet would be to go through the university's bookstore. So Loretta, is there, was there ever a point where you thought to yourself, I never want to taste another cherry again?
Actually not. It's been, this really good excuse to get together, like we've, made, we've made friends of our skinny pigs. So far, people still allow us in their homes. they don't go running when we bring over anything for them to try. Cause we keep testing the berries too in different recipes.
[00:46:12] Cherry Cookbook Volume Two?
You think there's going to be a volume two? I think there is. We've been talking about doing a volume two. yeah, I think there is because we, yeah, it's been requested. that's totally newsworthy. If you already have the biggest cherry book in the world, Cherry Recipe Book, then you'll have two.
You'll have two. That's amazing. I just also wanted to say I heard it's a very special day for you today. Oh, dear. Is that a secret? but I guess it's not. I think it's not a secret anymore. It's your birthday, isn't it? It is my birthday. Happy birthday to you. Virginie's singing to you.
Oh no. You've got strangers singing to you all the way from Toronto, Ontario. Actually, Oshawa, Ontario. I've corrected myself. Oh, okay. So in Oshawa, Ontario, we are celebrating your birthday and we're so honoured that you spend some of your birthday with us. it's been my pleasure. And thank you again for promoting these cherries.
Oh, I'm really excited. we're, growing them. I'm growing them in my community orchard and many others. Thanks to Virginie's TreeMobile project, we'll be experimenting with them. So I think it's exciting to have. a shrub that people can grow if they don't have room for a whole tree that, and we know, we all know how big cherry trees can get.
Very, big. Yeah, it's just, it's wonderful to have them out in your garden. Yeah. Yeah. Is the harvest, is it like scattered throughout the season or do you get them all at one shot? I think it depends the season. The, breed. Bob would be better at answering that than I would, but, I think it depends on the breed.
[00:47:59] Wrapping Up: Final Thoughts and Farewells
I want to thank both of you so much for coming on the show today. I can't believe that we are coming towards the end of our hour. Oh, that's been quick. It's been really quick. So I know that you guys are sharing one headset. thank you to you, and thank you to Bob, and I really hope to be in touch.
So thank you for coming.
Thank you. Okay. You take care. You too. Bye bye. we're wrapping up the show, and I have Virginie with me still of TreeMobile. And Virginie, tell me just again, where you're delivering these trees, what website people can go to, and any extra information. Sure. if you'd like to find out more about TreeMobile, please go to TransitionTreeMobile.
org. We deliver in Toronto and Guelph, and have pickup locations in Richmond Hill. Cambridge and Toronto. and also because we knew we were going to be on this show, I've actually asked my nursery to get some more shrub cherries for us. Oh, super. So you'll have lots of them. That's great. thank you so much, Virginie, for coming along.
Thank you. And that's all for the show today.