Cherry Picking and Cherry Pitter Review

On Memorial Day weekend, it has become tradition to go cherry picking.  My dad works with farmers, and after the cherries have been harvested, they let us come and pick the ones left behind.  There are usually a lot left over, so we have a great time.  It has also become a tradition for a few friends to come along.  My dad was in the Peace Corps way back when, and he still keeps in touch with the friends he made during his time there.  These people have become and extended family for us and I love them to pieces.  Also, tagging along is one of my best friends from high school with her husband and son (who I can’t get enough of these days).  Anyways, cheers to a lovely day of cherries!

I know it was far away from Halloween, but the jack-o-lantern pail was perfect for this little guy to keep his cherries in.  Such a gorgeous day to be young and run through the orchard.

Had so much fun.  We had to get every last one….or at least until our bags were about to burst.

We brought home sooooo many pounds of cherries.  Its hard to eat all of them…..otherwise you get a stomach ache.  So for me, I decided to pit most of my cherries to make pies and jam later.  In the past I have pitted cherries with a paring knife.  My hands were dyed purple for like a week and my hands hurt.  This year, I bought a Progressive Cherry-It cherry pitter from Bed Bath and Beyond.

With this pitter, I was able to pit 4 cherries at a time with just a quick push down.  This was a much faster process.  Plus my hands didn’t get as purple.  It is a messy process, so make sure you protect the surface you are working on.   The cherry pitter has locations for large and small cherries which is nice.  It also has a lock feature that keeps it closed when you aren’t using it.  This comes in handy because the mechanism that pushes the pit out of the cherry is sharp.  The only downside is that it isn’t 100% effective.  You will need to check if the whole pit or part of a pit has stayed connected to the cherry.  I would say it is good 90% of the time.   But it is always that bite you take that cracks your tooth that ruins the experience for you.  No pitting process is 100% effective anyways.   I even bought one for my mom who suffers from arthritis and it didn’t aggravate her hands.  I definitely recommend this for pitting a large volume of cherries.