Michigan Cherry Season, Explained

Michigan is the country's leading producer of tart cherries. By some estimates, the state grows 75 to 80 percent of the nation's crop in a given year, concentrated in the orchards around Traverse City and the tip of the Lower Peninsula. That is not a trivia fact. It is context for why cherry season in Michigan carries a weight that cherry season in most other states does not. When the harvest fails, it ripples through the regional food economy. When it is good, it shows up in everything.

This is the fourth entry in what has become an accidental seasonal foraging series: ramps in April, morels in late April and May, strawberries in late June. Cherries come next. The tart cherry window in northern Michigan opens in early July and closes within three to four weeks. Southeast Michigan orchards run slightly behind, typically peaking in mid-July. The National Cherry Festival in Traverse City is scheduled around the harvest, and it fills the city for ten days in a way that changes the character of the place entirely.

Two Kinds of Cherries

Michigan grows two categories of cherries worth knowing.

Tart cherries (primarily the Montmorency variety) are the economic and cultural core of Michigan cherry country. Montmorency is a deep red, small, and genuinely tart: not just less-sweet-than-a-bing but bracing in a way that requires some other ingredient to balance. They are almost never eaten fresh and are almost always processed: frozen, dried, juiced, made into preserves, used in baking. A bag of dried Michigan tart cherries in trail mix or on a salad tastes like no other dried fruit. Their tartness is their value. A cherry pie made from fresh Montmorency cherries, properly sweetened and thickened, is a different pie than one made from sweet cherries or canned filling.

Sweet cherries (Bing, Rainier, and other varieties) grow in smaller quantities in Michigan and are more directly comparable to what you find in stores from California and the Northwest. They are the cherries you eat out of hand, the ones that show up at farmers markets in July when they are in season locally. Michigan sweet cherries are good, seasonal, and worth buying when they appear. They are not the reason Michigan is the cherry state.

The Festival

The National Cherry Festival in Traverse City runs for about ten days starting the last week of June or first week of July, timed to the beginning of the cherry harvest in the surrounding orchards. It is one of Michigan's largest annual events, drawing several hundred thousand visitors to a city of roughly fifteen thousand people. The footprint covers the waterfront and downtown Traverse City with parades, cherry pit spitting contests, air shows, live music, and a great deal of food and drink oriented around the cherry.

If you are going, plan ahead. Accommodations within walking distance of the festival fill months in advance. The traffic on US-31 heading into the city on peak festival days is the Michigan version of a summer traffic jam. The festival itself is free to attend. The logistical overhead of getting there and finding a place to stay is the actual cost.

The festival is worth it if you have not been. Traverse City is a beautiful town and the summer version of it, with the cherry orchards visible from the road and the lake just past the waterfront, is genuinely good. The food context is everywhere: cherry wine, cherry preserves, cherry cocktails, cherry everything. It is an annual reminder that Michigan's agricultural identity has a flavor, and the flavor is tart.

Even if you do not make the Traverse City trip, cherry season changes what is available in southeast Michigan. Dried Michigan tart cherries appear at markets year-round, but the fresh and frozen harvest-season product shows up in late July and August at farm stands and specialty stores.

Where to Find Them Locally

Wiard's Orchards (5565 Merritt Rd, Ypsilanti) grows fruit on the site and runs a farm market through the fall harvest season. The orchard store opens in late summer and carries Michigan cherries alongside apples and seasonal produce. Worth calling ahead during July and August to confirm cherry availability.

Ann Arbor Farmers Market (315 Detroit St, Kerrytown) carries Michigan sweet cherries from regional farms during peak season, typically mid-July through early August. Tart cherries appear less frequently at fresh market, since most go directly to processing, but dried and preserved tart cherry products are available year-round from several vendors.

Argus Farm Stop (1207 W Stadium Blvd) stocks Michigan-sourced produce and carries dried tart cherries and cherry products from regional processors throughout the year. During peak summer, frozen tart cherries may appear as well.

Grocery stores in Washtenaw County carry Michigan dried tart cherries year-round under a number of regional brand names. The Montmorency variety will be listed on the package if it is genuinely Michigan tart.

What to Do With Them

Cherry pie. The tart cherry pie is Michigan's answer to the question of what to bake in July. Montmorency cherries require sugar, a little almond extract if you want to lean into the fruit's natural almond-adjacent notes, and a cornstarch or flour thickener to keep the filling from running. The result is a pie that tastes like the region. Use frozen Michigan tart cherries if fresh are not available; the fruit freezes well and the pie will not suffer.

Dried cherries in salads and grain dishes. A handful of dried tart cherries in a grain salad does what dried cranberries do, but with more complexity and less residual sweetness. They work with bitter greens (arugula, endive) where the tartness reads as a counterweight to the bite of the greens. Pair with toasted nuts and a sharp cheese.

Cherry cocktails. Tart cherry juice makes a better cocktail mixer than sweet cherry liqueur in most applications. It has the acidity to balance spirits that need a tart counterpart. Mixed with bourbon, a squeeze of lemon, and a little sweetener, it produces a sour that uses the cherry as the featured flavor rather than a sweetener. Tart cherry shrubs (cherry juice, vinegar, sugar) are worth making in quantity during peak season for cocktails through the fall.

Cherry clafoutis. The French preparation is simple: a thick batter poured over fruit and baked until set, somewhere between a custard and a pancake. Sweet cherries work best here. The traditional recipe in the Limousin region does not pit the cherries, on the argument that the pits add flavor during baking. Pit them if you prefer; the clafoutis will be fine either way. A good clafoutis is summer dessert at its most direct: fruit, egg, cream, a hot oven.

Dried cherries in baked goods. Dried tart cherries fold into scone and muffin batters the way dried cranberries do, but with more personality. They work well in oatmeal cookies and granola. Combined with chocolate (dark, not milk) they are a classic pairing because the acid in the cherry cuts through the richness of the fat.

What not to do. Do not confuse the uses of tart and sweet cherries. Sweet cherries are for eating fresh and for preparations where you want the cherry to read as sweet. Tart cherries are for cooking, baking, and making drinks where acid is valuable. The two are not interchangeable in a recipe. If you use sweet cherries in a cherry pie that calls for Montmorency, you will get a filling that is sweet and lacks structure. If you try to eat a bowl of Montmorency cherries as you would Bings, you will find them difficult.

The Short Version

Michigan grows most of the country's tart cherries. The season peaks in early July around Traverse City, and the National Cherry Festival runs around the harvest. Southeast Michigan orchards trail by a few weeks. Dried Michigan tart cherries are available year-round and are worth keeping in your pantry. Fresh sweet cherries appear at the farmers market in mid-July and are worth buying when they do. Cherry pie made from Michigan Montmorency cherries is the correct use of the fruit at peak season. The window is short and it comes back every year.