How to Care for your Fruit
Cherries - Red, Rainier and Flathead (June+July)
Keep them cold and dry! Because they are fresh picked, you will be amazed at how long your cherries last (compared to store cherries), as long as they don’t stay warm or wet. We recommend taking them out of the bag (in a bowl or loose in your crisper drawer works great), keeping them in the fridge and not washing them until you’re ready to eat them. Or you could just eat them now :)
Peaches - Freestone or Cling (June-Sept)
For a truly juicy, sweet, flavorful peach, leave your fruit out of the fridge until it starts to get fragrant and soft, often 3-5 days. They are ideal when a gentle squeeze leaves a dent in the fruit (usually a day or two past softening), but if you’d like to extend the life of your peaches, you can refrigerate them once they’ve softened. Not before! And limit chilling to a week. If they get away from you, peaches freeze well. Or you could just eat them :)
Bartlett Pears (August+September)
They take longer than you think! Bartletts are great because they show you when they're ready, turning from grass green to a bright yellow, but that will only happen at room temperature, and it takes time--two weeks from first picking, less if Levi has ripened them some in the trailer. Just glance at them every day or two, and you will magically see one turn yellow. Leave it in if you'd like the rest to go faster, or take it out if you'd rather they ripen slowly.
They also keep like magic, as long as they're green. You can store them (green) in the fridge for up to three months and still reliably have them ripen when you put them at room temperature (and, again, wait an inordinate amount of time).