POLSON - Over 150 vendors and many residents of Polson gathered on Main Street For the Flathead Cherry Festival over the weekend.
“For the community of Polson, an event like this is pretty amazing, we have a lot of volunteers that come out to help support it our community supports it, and a huge impact on the local economy as well so people need a place to stay need a place to eat and they enjoy the whole weekend here in Polson which is great," said Carol Lynn Lapotka of the Cherry Festival Committee.
The Flathead Cherry Festival is held on the last weekend of July to allow for peak ripeness of the cherries. However, the dry and hot Montana weather posed challenges for some of the cherry crops and their farmers.
“Well, cherries are tough every year don’t let anybody tell you anything different this year was specifically challenging for the Rainiers because they are a lot more sensitive to grow and it was very hot and quite dry for us this year and so those Rainiers they tend to bruise a little bit easier with the wind and if there’s too much sun they’ll sunburn," explained Montana Orchard Services owner Desirae Knapp.
No matter how hard the growing season is Knapp uses the Cherry Festival as a milestone in the growing season.
“We’re happy to push all of our fruit out into the market and make all of our customers happy and we can really tell if we’ve had a good year by how well the cherry festival goes cause there’s so many more people that come to the festival so it’s a nice event to go to.”
The festival concluded with a cherry-related food competition with a variety of different categories.
