Rating:

0.0 (0 votes)

POLSON- This year's batch of Flathead cherries is nearly ready for harvest and the timing of the annual Flathead Cherry Festival this weekend in Polson is almost perfect.

Some growers say not even grizzly bears will stop the Flathead cherry crop.

Some farmers' harvests will be ready in about a week, said cherry grower Ken Edgington, with the Bear Dance Orchard in Woods Bay.

"Further south, they may just be a week off, down around Finley Point area," he said. "It starts down in that area, and then kinda moves up the lake from south to north."

Edgington said most cherry growers have weathered this year's high winds, hail and heavy rain.

"No, we haven't seen a lot of damage, we were sweating the hail that was forecast, but it seemed to go up through the middle of the lake and it missed us all through here, which we're glad it did."

Edgington said his Lamberts, Lapins and other types of cherries are at least a week out. He also has two dwarf trees of a variety he can't figure out.

"They have to be good, because we have a bear and her two cubs and they come all the time, and they got one of them, and we said 'Doggone it, you're not going to get the other one,' so me and my wife, we went up and picked it this morning."

The Flathead Cherry Festival runs July 21st and July 22nd in Polson. For more, visit the Montana Cherries website.