Foraging for Chokecherries

short post on Chokecherry picking - August 4, 2024

I had the pleasure of picking some Chokecherries this morning, only a short 10 minute walk from my home. It has been hot weather lately, but only 20’C today with a breeze, so a pleasure to be outside.

I picked a 2 gallon pail full in about 1.5 hours.

The next stage of the process is submerging the Chokecherries in a sink half full of cold water. Any leaves, twigs, dried cherries, insects and other extraneous material floats and can be skimmed off. Then pick out any unripe and partly green cherries. I don’t worry about stems. Lastly I drain water from the cleaned cherries by placing them in a colander over a large bowl before transferring into a large ziplock freezer bag.

I ended up with 2 large freezer bags filled to the brim.

After freezing bags weighed about 3kg each for 6kg total weight.