WATCH: This is finally the week for local cherries

• See how big the cherries already are
• Fruit is red lower on the tree and darker up top

After the long, colder and wetter spring impacted local cherry growth, the fruit is now starting to come off local fields, and into the stores.

U-pick cherry picking started Monday in and around Kelowna, and larger scale farmers have their picking on site this week ahead of a busy number of months.

Until now, the cherries on local store shelves have been from the earlier harvesting areas of the southern Okanagan like Oliver and Osoyoos. The picking in the Kelowna area is around two to three weeks behind normal schedule.

But the local orchards are now revealing their lush, plump, sweet, darkness, especially on the treetops.

It may be surprising to note the cherries are big despite the tough growing season in recent months.

“Because of the lighter crop [due to the cold, wet spring], that’s why they’re so big,” Jas Sanghera with Don-O-Ray Farms told Ara from 103.1 Beach Radio from his orchard in West Kelowna. “There are less cherries, but the tree can concentrate on the cherries it does have.”

The lower branches are still filled with bright red, yet-to-mature cherries, and Sanghera said picking is done from the top down based on light exposure.

“We start from our tops, because that’s where a lot of the sunlight is and then we work our way down.” A crew of around ten people will descend on the farm in the coming days.

The cherries at the top of the trees can expand by double in the course of the next week, according to Sanghera so the timing of the picking is everything in terms of maximizing the size, colour and sweetness for the consumer.

Sanghera said the cherries coming off the trees this week are of the Lapin variety; the earlier growing Satin type were not a success because of weather-related damage to their buds. Later in July and into August they will also pick two more varieties: Sweetheart and Sacado.

While the total harvest size across the entire regional sector is expected to be smaller than last year, the actual size of each cherry is going to be bigger. And, much like everything else on the store shelves these days, inflation and rising costs will likely push the sticker price up. But Sanghera said demand has already been high so far this season and he doesn't expect that to wane.

"Our cost has gone quite high but we look at the cost and the affordability, and then we decide a price. We want everyone to afford these local cherries."