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Everything You Didn’t Know You Wanted To Know About Cherries
February is National Cherry Month in the United States. This fruit is popular in food, fashion, and more, but there is a lot more to this fruit than you may know. From the etymology of their name to the health benefits of consuming them to their history in fashion, cherries are fascinating!
Where does the word “cherry” come from? A Turkish town called Cerasus is the origin behind the name of the fruit. The largest cherry-producing country remains Turkey today, with the United States the second-largest producer of cherries on the globe.
You may know that cherries grow on trees. Washington, DC, the US Capitol, has cherry trees that people travel from around the country and the world to see bloom. (I’ve been there within just a week or two of that magical time, but have yet to visit while those gorgeous flowers adorn them!)
Cherry trees can grow up to 33 feet tall (that’s a little over 10 meters) and typically produce around 7,000 cherries. It takes three to four years for a cherry tree to start providing fruit after it is planted, but it can continue to produce for about 100 years! The two main types produced in the United…