The harvest time is coming and the owners garden trees The question invariably arises: how to pick cherries on a tall tree? Picking berries from a tall tree is a problem, but if it is not done, the harvest will be partially lost due to the fact that the gardener cannot reach the upper branches. Are there any devices that can make it as easy as possible? this procedure? If they exist, where can I get them and is it possible to do something similar on my own? This will be discussed in this article.

Requirements for devices

To organize the harvest, specialized stores offer a variety of devices for picking cherries from a tall tree, which will help remove the berries from the top branches. However, there is no need to spend money - it will not be difficult for a gardener to make such things on his own. The work is simple, quick, and necessary materials are often right at hand.

When choosing a puller option, there are some points to consider:

how effective is the device (how quickly the fruits are picked, whether the cherries will spill or spoil);
safety of use for humans;
convenience (how comfortable is it in the hand, is it possible to work for a long time);
length of the holder (the handle should be long enough so that it reaches the very top of the head and the berries are easily torn off).

Tall cherry

What types of pullers are there?

It is better for the gardener to choose this improvised means, which will be as convenient as possible for him. If we talk about homemade devices, they come in the following types:

iron can with teeth;
a plastic bottle to which a wire hook is attached;
a tube with a hook through which the berries will fall into a special container (this can be a bag or a bag).

What is the easiest way to pick cherries from the upper branches? It is worth taking a closer look at the devices that help the gardener. Some of them can be done with your own hands.

Tube with hook

To make such a puller, you need to prepare a wide pipe through which several berries can freely slip through.

Note to the gardener.This device a person will be suspended for a long time, and therefore it is recommended to use the lightest materials (plastic or aluminum tubes).

The pipe must be cut diagonally at one end. The sharp end is cut into 2 parts. The width of the resulting groove should correspond to the thickness of the stalk. Each end must be bent into a hook. To facilitate this work the material can be heated or pressed against a flat surface.

The opposite end is also heated and then placed on a solid object (a cut bottle can be used). When harvesting, you need to put a bag on it where the berries will fall. This device allows you to easily remove berries located at height.

It is worth noting that the use of tubes is widely used among gardeners due to the simplicity of the device. But if it is not possible to find materials for production, then it is worth familiarizing yourself with other devices that allow you to collect cherries from the upper branches.

Plastic bottle

This assistant is also very popular in economic use. You need to take a plastic bottle and cut off the bottom part. A solid wire is attached to the plastic, which can be secured with rope, glue or tape. The wire is shaped like a watering can. The narrowed groove should be the width of the fruit stem. At the moment of tension, the berry will come off and end up inside the bottle.

On a note. All that remains is to select a stick according to the thickness of the neck and insert it there. If the required attachment is not found, then the stick can simply be glued to the bottle.

Can

If we talk about how to properly pick cherries, then you can use an ordinary tin can. A hole is cut in the tin so that the teeth remain in the place where the lid was. They will grab and hold the berry. The jar is tied to a nozzle; it can be a piece of wood or a metal tube. It is best to choose lightweight materials so that your hands do not get tired.

Important! Using cans is dangerous because of the sharp edges that can easily cause injury. It is not recommended to make such designs if summer cottage there are small children.

Landing net

A device for catching fish can also help in the garden. To collect berries, the hoop is bent in a perpendicular direction to the handle. If you don’t have a net, you can use wire, mesh or a plastic bag.

Picking the berries is very simple, just run the net along the branches and the ripe harvest ends up in a bag for collection.

How it works

No matter which of the proposed options is chosen, it is necessary to take into account its structure and think about whether difficulties will arise when a person decides to pick cherries. The whole process involves hooking the berries with a hook, wire or sharp edge. And after hooking, the picker only has to pull the device hard enough so that the cherries end up in the container.

Simple device

If we talk about how cherries are harvested on an industrial scale, then the homemade or purchased devices listed above will not work. Orchards processed using special combines. Because there are not enough human resources to manually pick berries.

What are the benefits of cherries

The berry has mass beneficial properties, which can significantly alleviate a person’s condition when various diseases. The berry helps thin the blood and clear cholesterol.

Working in an office environment involves sitting for long periods of time, and therefore people often suffer varicose veins veins or blood stagnation. Cherries can be used as prophylactic agents against these ailments. The berry helps with joint pain, gout or osteoarthritis.

Powerful antioxidants slow down the aging process in cells and have a rejuvenating and cleansing effect. Cherry removes toxins from the body and serves to normalize the functioning of the kidneys and liver. When cleansing the body of toxic substances, the condition of the human skin significantly improves.

Cherry has a beneficial effect on digestion, normalizes metabolic processes, improves appetite and helps digest food.

Good to know. Cherries contain organic acids small quantity, and therefore the berry is safe for people with gastritis, stomach ulcers or high acidity.

How to store cherries

After harvesting, many gardeners wonder whether the picked cherries ripen? The answer is no, cherries are not capable of ripening during storage. Unlike some others garden crops, this berry does not have this property.

You can save cherries different ways. For example, freeze fruits. Before harvesting in this way, the cherries need to be sorted out so that there are no rotten fruits, which could spoil the entire product.

Harvesting

The berries are placed in special bags that do not allow the smell to pass through, so that the delicacies lying nearby do not affect the taste of the cherries. The berries should be dry, without any juice leaks. If everything is done correctly, the harvest will be stored for a year.

You can place the berries in the refrigerator. It is also recommended to go through all of them to find the damaged ones. It is best to use containers or trays for storage. food products. The package is not the best the best option, the berries often become aerated in them. Thus, cherries can last for about 5 days.

Important! Store the crop in conditions room temperature It is recommended no more than 2 days. Then fermentation processes begin in the berries.

Some gardeners dry cherries, but in this form they become a treat for insects. To prevent them from getting to the berries, you need to take a jar with a lid. It is worth considering that processing destroys vitamins, but despite this, the berries still have certain benefits.

When used for canning, cherries must be placed in the refrigerator in sealed jars that will not allow air to pass through. The storage duration is 365 days. Cherry jam does not have to be left in the refrigerator, you can choose dark place where the sun's rays do not penetrate.

The use of special devices for picking cherries makes life much easier for the gardener and significantly reduces the time spent working in the garden. It is worth noting that fruit collections can also be used when processing cherry trees.

Varieties

“Cherry, like cherries, is divided into griots and amorels: dark berries with dark juice and light berries with almost clear juice. Amorels are always slightly more sour than griots. But we must remember that the sweetness of a berry does not depend on its sugar content, but on the balance of sugar and acid. Do you know which vegetable is one of the sweetest? Garlic. So a variety may contain a lot of sugar, but not be sweet due to the same high acid content.

The consistency of the pulp does not always indicate quality and primarily depends on the variety: softer and juicier or dense and crunchy. Berries that go on sale, as a rule, are of the second type, because they are better stored. But in any case, cherries have a short shelf life: unlike many fruits and vegetables, they are harvested when they are fully ripe, since after picking from the branch the berry stops its ripening; accordingly, during transportation it does not ripen, but can only deteriorate.

It is a stereotype that taste depends on the climate of the growing region. The main thing is the variety. Another thing is that each variety is intended for a specific area and, for example, in the south there are more tasty varieties only for the reason that cherries were grown there historically and, thanks to time, they were able to develop the most interesting varieties; large-fruited ones are also typical for that area.

By the way, cherries are also grown in northern regions Russia (it all started with the Leningradskaya black variety in the 70s), which is what the Moscow region is considered to be. Now they are starting to do this on an industrial scale - this is a very profitable crop to grow: modern varieties(for example, “iput” and “fatezh”) quickly come into fruition, unlike, for example, garden strawberries and are more resistant to transportation and storage.

Everything that is supplied from abroad has a very strict marketable condition and packaging and is stored longer to the detriment of taste and vitamins. Unfortunately, collect everything positive traits in one berry is impossible, and there can be many reasons. For example, I am the most delicious varieties stopped growing them because birds peck them and it’s almost impossible to protect them.”

How to choose cherries?

“First of all, pay attention to external signs. A green stalk means that the berry is not overripe and was recently picked. No cracks - there was no waterlogging during ripening (usually from rain); The taste of such cherries will not be watery, and the berries will be well stored at home for several days. The cherries should be elastic to the touch; if soft, as a rule, it has been stored for a long time. Such a berry loses its characteristic aroma and taste, in best case scenario there will be sugar left; It will be stored very poorly. With odors, everything is simple: there should not be those that indicate staleness. Well, the main thing when choosing is to try.”

“The stalk should be green; if it is torn off, bacteria and germs can enter the dimple. The berries should be dry, firm and shiny. There should be no smell of fermentation or rot (over-ripeness).

Andrey Tumanov, chairman public organization"Gardeners of Russia", amateur agronomist:“If the berry looks normal without the stalk, it’s okay. But keep in mind that juicy varieties Unlike crispy ones, they can quickly deteriorate, as they will be more vulnerable at the point where the stalk is torn off. Such berries must be eaten or processed immediately.”

“Signs of high-quality cherries: berries of the same size; with or without stalks of a pleasant green color; elastic to the touch and shiny; surface without signs of damage or rot; delicate and sweet aroma."

Where do the berries come from?

Sergey Melnik, director of development of food delivery service SeasonMarket:“At the moment we have three main delivery regions. The first is Central Asia, more precisely, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan. As a rule, cherries appear from there in mid-May at a very high price and mostly of dark and red varieties (“Bakhorgi”, “Oxheart”, “Bull’s Eye”). If the cherries are fresh and delivered to the right conditions, it will be sweet, with not the strongest cherry aroma. In addition, from Central Asia They bring good late cherries in the second half of July and early August.

The second is Serbia, Greece, Türkiye. Sweet cherries are brought from there of mature varieties; the color is usually dark red. This is not to say that these berries are bad, but there are so many adventures and risks along the way that they often end up on the shelves with a very “empty” taste. They win competition due to mass supply during the season and low prices. The berries from there are often not the most interesting in taste. They are usually grown in intensive gardens: columnar trees produce a harvest from the second year.

The third is Russia, namely Krasnodar region, Crimea, a little bit of Rostov-on-Don. Cherries from there are the most delicious and, paradoxically, the rarest: Krasnodar ones are actively sold mainly in resort towns locally; Crimea is long and expensive to remove due to the ferry crossing. Over the past 20 years, almost no new gardens have been established there; on the contrary, their area has been decreasing, which has not contributed to an increase in supply. But cherries from the south of Russia are richer in flavor, and since the climate here is milder than Asia and Turkey, they ripen longer and during this time they gain flavor, and the sum of temperatures is enough to accumulate sugars. In addition, the south of Russia has a lot to offer varietal diversity: there is a red “fairy tale”, and yellow with a ruddy side “Beauty of Kuban” and “Franz Joseph”, and dark ruby “Valery Chkalov” and “Vasilisa”. And of course, what plays in favor of the taste of Russian berries is that they are delivered to Moscow in less time than their competitors from hot countries. For example, cherries reach SeasonMarket clients just 36 hours after picking in orchards near Timashevsky and the village of Novominskaya in the Krasnodar Territory.

There is also a small and short-term supply in June–July for cherries from Moldova and Armenia; from the latter, for example, they bring excellent varieties white cherries by the end of June - beginning of July."

“Cherry is brought from Kuban, Moldova, Serbia, Greece and Uzbekistan. Now at the Ecomarket there are Uzbek (darker and lighter), Crimean (black), Serbian cherries (dark pink), Krasnodar (white) and Armenian (dark).”

“Right now we have cherries mainly from Uzbekistan, then there will be Serbian and Crimean.”

Olga Kukoba, creative director of the Danilovsky market:“Now on our shelves we have cherries from three countries: Uzbekistan - in boxes, neatly folded one to one, large caliber, sweet, with a slight sourness; Serbia - the berries are packed in bulk in a box, sweet, but not stored for long; and Armenia - appeared quite recently, dark red (very sweet, large, dense), yellow (sweet) or pink (sweet with a slight bitterness, most often used for jam).”

Marina Ustimenko, director of the Allfoods chain of stores:“Cherry is supplied from Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Krasnodar region and Crimea. From the end of May, cherries are brought from the CIS countries and from abroad; Russian ones appear in June.”

What affects the price?

Sergey Melnik, director of development of food delivery service SeasonMarket:“Cherry from Uzbekistan is the most expensive because it is the earliest; is considered the sweetest, which in fact is not always the case, especially in May-June. Kuban and Crimea are cheaper than Central Asia, but more expensive than Turkey and Greece, since there is a slight shortage of supply, in addition, these are usually the freshest goods. Cherries from Greece, Turkey and Serbia - mass market; the simplest cherries, the main thing is that they are darker: this way the client will quickly believe that they are “sweet as honey.” For small supplies from Armenia and Moldova, the price is generally unpredictable.”

Maya Likhareva, development director at Ecomarket:“The price of cherries depends on logistics: delivery by tanker is cheaper, delivery by plane is more expensive. The cost of renting the premises and seasonality also influences. At Ecomarket, for example, prices vary from 250 to 600 rubles.”

Ruslan Gabelia, seller at the GastroFerma market:“Now, at the beginning of the season, cherries are expensive, but in 10–15 days the price will drop. At GastroFerma, for example, it currently costs 400 rubles per kg.”

Where do the cherries that are sold on the street come from?

Andrey Tumanov, chairman of the public organization “Gardeners of Russia”, amateur agronomist:“There are semi-mafia organizations that buy goods either at the same wholesale food bases as others, or intercept them directly from trucks, but the flow of goods is the same. As a rule, Azerbaijanis do this kind of work, and, in principle, you can learn a lot from them - they make a big profit from these, at first glance, modest stalls. Their scheme works great: the cost of the product is lower, since they do not pay taxes, salaries and rent; nothing is grown specifically for them; revs are higher; they are mobile and quickly change from product to product; There is no bureaucracy, everything is on call. It would be better not to drive them away, but to involve them in legitimate work - unique people who created a network without documents, without anything. I think that this is a prototype of future real companies operating in normal market relations, that is, in the conditions that exist. Now official customers choose not the most optimal product in terms of price and quality, but often the one for which they give kickbacks. Complex mechanism."

This year I decided to break the established tradition and personally be present at the ripening of the cherries. As it turned out, cherries begin to ripen at the very top of the tree, where the berries are best lit during the day, and maybe for some other reasons - I don’t know, I’m not a botanist (and they don’t seem to be called berries, but what else can they be called - I don’t know either). And since there are no special ladders, scaffolds or other cunning devices for picking cherries from the very top of the tree at the dacha, and I also haven’t had the desire to climb trees for about 30 years, I started thinking about how I could pick the ripening cherries.

The first thing I did was go to the Internet, but there was only one more or less adequate answer to such a request. And even then it turned out that to pick a cherry you would need a long stick, plastic or metal pipe, a piece of a bicycle inner tube, a rope and a bag for receiving picked cherries. There were no drawings or photographs on the site, but from the short description I understood how to connect it all together and, most importantly, how to attach the rope so that the ripe cherry would be clamped in the cutting chamber. Therefore, I was no longer interested in how the cherries would roll down the pipe and end up in the bag, and I began to develop my own system for picking cherries.

I had the main thing - a stick about 3-3.5 meters long. I went to the tree and made sure that I could reach almost any berry. All that remains is to figure out how to pick cherries using this stick.

Various ingenious systems, similar to the one shown in the cartoon about Donald Duck and the badgers, popped into my head. Well, there are scissors at the end of a stick and again a rope. And if without a rope, then somehow expose the blades of the knives (I have old disposable ones in the garage). But then I came across the details of a child's metal constructor and I quickly constructed a completely workable system.

I took a strip, bent it to make a bracket, and screwed the bracket to the stick at an angle of about 40-45 degrees. And then add another heavier piece to the top of the bracket so that when the stick rotates, when the bracket takes on an almost vertical position instead of a horizontal one, the piece lowers and thus clamps the cherry previously caught in the bracket.

Overall, the system turned out to be quite functional and even passed field tests; I even picked a few cherries. However, cherries grow quite densely; the distance between cherries is sometimes less than 1-1.5 centimeters. Therefore, although the created model of the cherry grinder passed field tests, it was decided to develop a simpler, smaller and more reliable model. Therefore, I do not attach drawings and photographs of the first model of the cherry grinder.

And then I remembered something in " Young technician", or in "Science and Life" in the section " For the home handyman- tips" a similar topic has already been discussed and one of craftsmen suggested for this purpose using an ordinary hairpin, the kind women use to create hairstyles a la Butterfly. It is enough to bend one leg of the hairpin so that the leg of the cherry passes between the legs of the hairpin, and screw the second leg to the stick. Or maybe I saw something similar in a store like “Everything for the garden”, but then I didn’t attach any importance to it. Nevertheless, I decided to reproduce this design, and since there was no free pin at hand, I used steel wire. Now the cherry peeler looks like this:

And this is how it works:

I don’t give the youngest (he’s 2 years old) a cherry picker yet (he has enough fishing rods), but the older one (she’s already 10) picks cherries quite normally with this device, but she’s just in no hurry to put the tool back in place. That's it.

P.S. As usual, it took no more than two hours to make the cherry grinder, but even 3 days was not enough to write this article.

18 07.18

How to quickly pick cherries? We make the device ourselves!

Sweet, with tender, juicy pulp, cherries are a favorite berry of adults and children. Dumplings and pies with cherries, Cherry jam and compote is a summer attribute of happiness. Cherries are not only tasty, but also incredibly healthy. The fruits contain high amounts of fructose and glucose, vitamins C, E, B9, B1, B2, PP, anthocyanins, folic acid, calcium, potassium, magnesium, phosphorus, iron, pectins and other useful microelements.

For long-term storage Cherries can be canned, frozen or dried. But before you start cooking delicious dishes or harvesting for the winter, the harvest needs to be harvested and very often this is hampered by the height of the branches with berries. A stepladder helps a lot, but sometimes it is difficult to reach the upper branches. If you don’t have a garden ladder, then a homemade cherry picking device can be an excellent solution.

Fruit collector from a tin can

High empty tin(10 cm in diameter) is perfect for this task.

IN top cover It is necessary to cut out the cloves through which the fruit stalk will freely pass. You need to secure the stalk of the required height to the fruit collector glass using a bolt.

The fruit collector is brought under the berries and the stalk is grabbed with a cut, then taken aside and the cherries end up in the jar.

To make it easier to free the fruit collector from berries, it is better to use jars with removable lids. But which are well attached to the main part of the jar so that the berries do not spill out ahead of time.

Pipe fruit picker

In order to make such a device for picking cherries, you need to choose a pipe that is not too narrow and not too heavy:

The diameter is very important, because several berries must pass freely through the pipe at the same time.
Hands will get tired very quickly from working with a heavy device, so it’s better to take plastic pipe or aluminum.

The tip of the pipe on one side must be cut obliquely sharp knife and cut a groove in the form of a hook. It is necessary to calculate the groove so that the stem of the berry fits freely into it.

The operation scheme is very simple - a pipe with a hook is placed under the fruit, the stalk is grabbed and the berry is torn off with a slight movement to the side, which then rolls down the pipe into a bag.

To prevent the bag from falling off during harvesting, reverse side pipes are formed in the form of a socket. To do this, the end is simply heated over a fire and placed on a bottle, for example. In case of aluminum pipe, you can attach a pair of hooks to the bottom using bolts or form them from the pipe itself.

Device for picking berries from a plastic bottle

An ordinary plastic bottle can be an excellent helper.

For this purpose plastic bottle a cutout is made closer to the bottom of the bottle with a groove for the free passage of the stalks. The neck of the bottle can be placed on the handle required height and secure with regular nails or self-tapping screws.

When it's time to harvest, many happy garden owners begin to think once again about where to buy or how to make a convenient device for picking cherries from a tall tree. This is really a problem: a considerable part of the harvest is sometimes lost due to the inability to reach the top of the plant.

Features of devices

On the market you can find many improvised means for removing cherries from the top of a tree, but you can do the same at home. The manufacturing process is simple, and the materials required for this can mostly be found at home.

When choosing a device, you need to consider some factors.

Efficiency (how quickly they can pick berries and whether they will crumble or spoil).
Safety (can they get hurt, etc.).
Convenience (how comfortable it will be to hold it in your hands and work for a long time).
Length of the handle (it is important that it is long enough to reach the top the right tree and pick the berries).

Types of pullers

Each person should be guided by what type of means at hand will be more convenient for him personally.

To collect fruit from a tree, gardeners often use one of homemade varieties pullers:

in the form of an iron can with teeth;
a plastic bottle with a hard wire hook attached;
a hook made of a tube through which cherries fall into a bag or bag.

From the tube

For this type of puller, you need to take a pipe with a wide diameter so that 3-4 cherries can slip through it at the same time.

Since the device will have to be kept suspended for a long time, the most preferred materials are aluminum or plastic.

One end of the tube is cut obliquely. The pointed end is cut into 2 parts. The groove between them should be such that the fetal leg can easily be inserted into it. The resulting 2 ends are bent so that the result is a hook. To do this, it is best to heat them with fire and rest them against something solid.

The other end can also be heated, after which it is placed on a solid base (for example, a cut-off bottle), onto which a bag or bag for cherries will be placed during picking. Thus, picking high-growing berries will not be difficult.

This type of device for harvesting crops is the most popular because of its convenience, but not everyone has a similar tube at hand at the dacha at a crucial moment, so it’s worth familiarizing yourself with other options.

From a plastic bottle

A homemade device made from a PET bottle is also common. To do this, it is cut into 2 parts and then taken top part. A piece of solid wire is glued to it using rope and glue or tape so that the shape of a watering can is obtained. The leg of the fruit should pass into the narrowed groove made of wire, after which, when tensioned, the berry comes off and ends up in the bottle.

The design is simple to make at home, so it is popular among gardeners.

In this case, they try to choose a stick according to the width of the neck of the bottle, so that it is convenient to put it on or glue it. Some people prefer to use the bottom of the bottle.

From a tin can

This method is less common due to the fact that the resulting sharp edges you can easily get hurt.

It is not recommended to use it, especially if you have small children in your family.

You need to cut a hole in the tin so that there are teeth on top where the lid is, capable of capturing and holding the berry. The can is tied to a stick or metal tube made of aluminum so that the puller is not too heavy.

Usage

Depending on the type of device, its use may vary. It is important to take into account its structure and think in advance what difficulties may arise in the work.

Whatever option is chosen, its application will come down to one thing - pick up a berry with a hook or hook, and then, feeling that the berry is secured, you need to forcefully pull and remove it into a special container (jar, bottle, bag, etc. ). Then the cherries are poured from this container into buckets or boxes.

conclusions

Do special device Every gardener can remove tall growing cherries. Its design and materials are not complicated or inaccessible, but you should be careful and choose the material, as well as the type of puller, according to your needs. Harvesting with its help will be much easier and more enjoyable.