Blossom April – May
Ten days of white across the bench. Mason bees fly in weather the honeybees refuse, and the frost fans run on clear cold nights. Whether August is any good gets settled here.
Kestrel Row Orchards · East Kelowna bench · planted 1978
Sweet cherries, sold the morning they come off the tree.
Eleven acres above Mission Creek, five varieties in a ladder from late June to late August, and one stand at the gate.
The row, by season
The trees are in bloom and August is being decided right now. Green fruit is sizing up — first picking is weeks away, not months. Crews are picking at dawn and the stand is open every day. The orchard is asleep. We prune all winter and reopen at bloom.
The place
A bench is a shelf of old lakebed, and ours faces southwest.
Cold air drains off it on spring nights, which is most of why the blossoms survive April. The afternoon light comes off the valley long and warm, which is most of why the fruit tastes the way it does. Our grandfather bought the parcel for the view; the cherries turned out to be the better idea.
The name isn’t decoration. In 1996 we retired the propane cannons and put nest boxes on the row ends instead. American kestrels took the first box that same spring, and their hovering keeps the starlings guessing better than noise ever did.
Everything here is done at the speed of a ladder: thinned by hand, picked by hand, sorted on the tailgate, and carried a hundred metres to the gate. There is no cold chain because there is no distance.
11 acres · 5 varieties · 14 nest boxes · 1 stand
What we grow
Five cherries, one after another.
All five were bred a valley away at the Summerland research station. They ripen in sequence, so the stand changes week to week — dates below are typical for our bench and slide with the spring.
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Santina
First dark cherry off the row. Mild and juicy; it never lasts the week.
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Lapins
Big, dependable, and sweet, with skin that shrugs off a July rain.
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Skeena
Firm, black-red, built like a plum. The one the crew eats in the rows.
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Sweetheart
Bright, heart-shaped, and crisp — it holds its snap in the fridge for days.
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Staccato
Among the last cherries in the valley. Dense, dark, the season’s closing argument.
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The plates on this page are older than any tree we farm — cherries painted for the record before colour photography could keep up. The names have changed; the ambition hasn’t.
The year
Four seasons of work behind two months of fruit.
Ripening June
We thin by hand so what stays on the branch sizes up properly. Nets go over the Santinas first, and the year’s kestrel fledglings learn to fly the rows.
Harvest July – August
Picking starts at five, while the fruit is still night-cold. Whatever reaches the stand by eight was hanging on a tree at dawn, and u-pick runs on weekends until the Sweethearts finish.
Frost September – March
Leaves drop, every tree gets pruned by hand, and the brush is chipped back into the rows to feed them. Winter is where the orchard earns next year.
The stand
On the boards right now
Closed until the first picking in late June — but the bloom is worth the drive on its own, and the gate stays open for walkers on weekends.
Opening soon. The moment the Santinas colour, we chalk the first-picking date at the gate and record it on the answering machine.
Open daily, 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Whatever was picked this morning, by the pound or the 10 kg box, plus u-pick on weekends with buckets provided.
Shuttered for the year. Thank you for a good season — the row wakes again at bloom.
Hours, honestly
- Late June
- As the fruit decides — phone first
- July – August
- Daily, 8:00 – 18:00
- U-pick
- Saturdays & Sundays in season
- September – spring
- Closed; we’re up ladders pruning
Card or cash. Rain or shine — cherries picked cold in the morning don’t mind the weather, and neither does the roof.
Asked at the gate
Five questions we hear every summer
When should we come for the deepest choice of cherries?
Mid-July through mid-August, when three varieties overlap on the stand at once. Chasing one variety in particular? Phone the week it ripens and we’ll hold you a box.
Can we pick our own?
Weekends in July and August. Ladders, buckets, and shade are ours; the reaching is yours. Kids pick alongside a paying adult at no charge.
Do you ship fruit?
No. A cherry is at its best within two days of leaving the stem, and a courier can’t promise that. We’d rather you taste them the way the crew does at dawn.
What do cherries cost this year?
Prices follow the picking and are chalked on the board each morning — figure on farm-gate rates by the pound, with a break when you take a full 10 kg box.
Do you spray the trees?
As little as the valley allows and never during bloom. Netting keeps the birds honest, fourteen kestrel boxes patrol the rows, and cold-morning picking does much of the rest.
Come up the hill
Find the row
Fifteen minutes from downtown Kelowna: follow KLO Road east until it becomes McCulloch, turn uphill at the old packing shed, and watch for the cherry sign at the gate.
Where
2280 Benchland Road
East Kelowna, BC
Call ahead
250-555-0136
The machine always knows what was picked today.
Write
orchard@kestrelrow.ca
Box orders answered within a day.
If the flag is up, we’re open. If a kestrel is hovering over the gate, consider it a welcome.
