I think a good part of the issue is the nature of your trees and the fruit they are producing. While it is true the pitting of even high quality cherries is somewhat time consuming I don't find it that tedious and have little problems with fruit left on the pit.

The wild fruits are much more difficult to work with but as you suspect there are ways of using it by cooking whole and then straining results in jelly and juices for example. And cherries, if you freeze them first, when thawed will just pop out the pits easily.

Dave

Our property in Ohio had wild fruit trees. While the flavors were intense and delicious, removing skins, pips or stones was impossible. I washed the fruit, threw them in a pot with a bit of water, and cooked to soften, ran them thru a mill to remove the debris, and then did whatever I wanted with the pulp. This worked quite well for apples, cherries and plums.

You might want to have a professional orchardist look at those trees and advise you on proper pruning; you might even want to hire it done by someone who knows what they're doing. I think you will find that proper pruning and feeding will greatly improve the future fruit crop.

Thanks Dave. After mangling and ripping the pits out of these little cherries before throwing their tiny carcasses in the freezer I am hoping your idea of freezing them first and then pitting works for me. Will try with next batch. Am also going to try some with Kate's suggestion of cooking to soften although my mill specifically says to pit cherries and plums first so running them through the mill to remove the pits probably isn't an option here.

And yes, we are definitely hiring professionals. We want professionals to prune because a) we are old futts and b) we want healthy trees and we think their best shot will be having professionals do the job. Thank you both very much for your advice.

Another wrinkle, two out of 4 Master Gardeners say our dime size "cherries" are actually plums which may explain why my cherry pitter kept choking on the pits. Two other Master Gardeners including an extension agent say they are real cherries. We think they taste very much like cherries.

Two Master Gardeners have told us our other mystery berries are serviceberries although the trees have single-trunks and are 70-80 feet tall. Next mystery in line will be tiny yellow fruit smaller even than our cherries (about the size of a blueberry.) They taste like plums. What an adventure! Am having a great deal of fun.

I use a Foley Mill to remove debris. It doesn't get clogged by the size of a pit.

The only thing I can add here is that small yellow plums make awesome jam! I have fussed with more than my share of little, albeit great tasting fruits. I got raw hands and a sore arm from peeling cherry tomatoes and seeding them with a Foley mill. Awesome tasting sauce though. I probably spent a couple of hours cutting out all the worms and brown spots from little apples from an ancient orchard, but that also made awesome applesauce. I think if you cook the fruit, like for jam, you could easily fish out the pits if they were plum sized. I just kind of mangle the fruit until the pit comes out, by hand.

Update - An Urban Forester from a neighboring city has identified our "serviceberries" as cherries and our "cherries" as plums. Our plums are still also plums. I guess I can't be irritated that my cherry pitter failed with our "cherries" as they weren't actually cherries. Also, I don't have a Foley mill. All I have is a Victorio strainer. This is all a learning experience and I will continue to mangle and freeze fruit as the results are delicious although time consuming. The owner of a fruit tree nursery is coming to evaluate our fruit trees, grapes, hazelnuts and garden soil next week to come up with a remediation plan. Thanks for the advice! I appreciate the comments and suggestions. sam