Fruit Varieties

A rich, tender, sweet cherry with full bodied flavor. Attractive purplish-black skin surrounds dark red flesh. Once the most widely grown commercial variety, but a little too juicy to ship well. The rich, berry-like flavor is outstanding, and makes a mouth-watering sweet cherry pie. Excellent for the home orchard and considered the best pollinator for dark sweet cherries. Exceptionally productive once established.

• Uses: Fresh eating and baking
• Harvest: Early
• Zones: 5-9
• Attributes: Excellent berry-like flavor

Late-ripening tart cherry for cooking, sometimes eaten fresh when fully ripe. Dark red fruit and juice. Naturally small tree with drooping branches. Introduced to America prior to 1862. 500 chill hours needed. Self-fruitful.

• Uses: Baking and fresh eating
• Harvest: Early
• Zones: 4-10
• Attributes: Small-statured pie cherry

Sweet dark red cherry of the Bing type. Excellent quality and rich flavor. Produces large crop and often resists late frost. Self-fruitful and crack resistant. Cross between a Van and a Stella. Ripens within days of the Stella.

• Uses: Fresh eating
• Harvest: Early
• Zones: 5-10
• Attributes: Large cropping cherry

Self-fruitful cherry with rich, juicy, dark red fruit, similar to its Lambert parent. One of our favorites for homes and small orchards. Ripens after Rainier. Hardy, vigorous tree pollinizes all other sweet cherries. Ripens days before Lapins.

• Uses: Fresh eating
• Harvest: Early
• Zones: 6-10
• Attributes: Resistant to cracking

This plum wins taste tests for its juicy combination of tart skin and sweet flesh. The small round fruits have reddish-purple skin and yellow-orange flesh. Delight is a very productive, disease resistant selection that ripens in early August.

• Uses: Fresh eating
• Harvest: Early
• Zones: 5-9
• Attributes: Award winning flavor

Another delectable heirloom European plum. Small round yellow fruit with yellow red dots. Sweet and juicy with an enjoyable smooth textured free stone; makes a delicious tart. Also used in France for fresh eating and Brandy. Great for pollinating other European plums.

• Uses: Fresh eating and brandy
• Harvest: Mid-season
• Zones: 5-9
• Attributes: Heirloom plum

Deemed California’s leading prune. Very sweet, rich flavor with tender, fine-textured flesh. Medium-sized prune plum of red to deep purple skin over amber flesh. Delicious for eating fresh, canning and drying. Long-lived and self-fertile, needs approx. 600-800 chill hours.

• Uses: Fresh eating and preserving
• Harvest: Mid-season
• Zones: 5-9
• Attributes: Versatile plum with fine textured flesh

From Clairac, the great prune district of France; brought to the United States by Felix Gillett of Nevada City. Large, delicious prune which can be dried without the lye dip required for other varieties. Very good for fresh eating. Requires a pollinizer.

• Uses: Fresh eating and preserving
• Harvest: Late
• Zones: 5-9
• Attributes: One of the largest prunes

Large, long, oval fruit; purple to dark blue skin over greenish-yellow flesh that turns red when cooked. Sweet flesh is good for eating fresh, cooking, canning and drying. Tree often overbears, will need thinning. Self-fertile.

• Uses: Fresh eating, cooking and preserving
• Harvest: Late
• Zones: 5-9
• Attributes: Outstanding color and flavor

An extremely cold hardy red raspberry, richly sweet in flavor. Tender, juicy, dark red berries are delicious frozen, canned and fresh. Very productive, strong, sturdy, summer-bearing canes reach approximately five feet in height when mature.

• Uses: Fresh eating and preserving
• Harvest: Mid-summer
• Zones: 3-9
• Attributes: Extremely cold hardy

Named for its yellow-gold fruit that is extremely sweet; a Raspberry in all aspects but color. This upright thorny shrub provides an abundance of magnificent gold berries from mid-summer to early fall. Excellent fresh or for making jams, jellies and cooking and baking. Self-pollinating; does not need another plant nearby to set fruit. Large, non-crumbling sweet golden berries. Vigorous and productive canes. Not recommended for extreme northern areas but hardy to below 25 degrees Farenheit. Requires well drained soils to survive.

• Uses: Fresh eating, preserving and cooking
• Harvest: Mid-summer through fall
• Zones: 5-9
• Attributes: Extremely cold hardy