We were leaving Wally World and drove around back just as they were filling a dumpster with BLACK CHERRIES. There was probably 500 pounds of the things! We went back to the house and came back with 5 gal. buckets and trash bags. There was also about 300# of bananas - most of which were only slightly speckled. Many tomatoes, 90% of which weren't so much as bruised! We gathered them, + some mangoes, corn, cucumbers, all of which were just perfect. WTH is wrong with them throwing out all that perfectly edible, and in the case of the cherries, unbelievably expensive food?
Anyway, I froze about 60 pounds of perfectly white and firm bananas, which will make cool treats for the chickens. The tomatoes they devoured immediately, so I froze a couple of kitchen bags of those too. The cherries I washed and sorted and maybe one in 10 had a soft spot on it, mostly just from the weight of them. I froze many of those, plus filled a whole side of my crisper drawer with them. The rest I just dumped out on the compost heap, where the calves immediately went into a head-butting contest trying for the biggest share of them. Oddly enough, the cucumbers were the only thing the goats cared for. They happily crunched into them, but wouldn't touch the cherries or tomatoes or bananas. I had set aside the few bananas I found that had soft spots to feed the chickens the next morning, but the calves ate them in the night.
I didn't feed a whole lot of the cherries to the chickens yet because I saw they were eating the whole thing/pit and all and I wanted to ask about those being harmful if they ate too many.
Anyway, I froze about 60 pounds of perfectly white and firm bananas, which will make cool treats for the chickens. The tomatoes they devoured immediately, so I froze a couple of kitchen bags of those too. The cherries I washed and sorted and maybe one in 10 had a soft spot on it, mostly just from the weight of them. I froze many of those, plus filled a whole side of my crisper drawer with them. The rest I just dumped out on the compost heap, where the calves immediately went into a head-butting contest trying for the biggest share of them. Oddly enough, the cucumbers were the only thing the goats cared for. They happily crunched into them, but wouldn't touch the cherries or tomatoes or bananas. I had set aside the few bananas I found that had soft spots to feed the chickens the next morning, but the calves ate them in the night.
I didn't feed a whole lot of the cherries to the chickens yet because I saw they were eating the whole thing/pit and all and I wanted to ask about those being harmful if they ate too many.
