Fall is here, and that means exciting things at the Orchard! This weekend is the beginning of both our fall u-pick and our fall festivals!! We’ve got many of the details regarding our Fall Festival Weekends posted on our Events page already, so I won’t repeat everything here. If you follow the link you can […]
We’ve come to the fun part of berry season where we have multiple berries to pick at the same time. At 8am tomorrow morning (Saturday, June 29th) we will have strawberries, red raspberries, blueberries, AND black raspberries all open for picking at once! After that, it will depend on demand and how things ripen as […]
This post is a little late, as we FINALLY (fingers crossed) seem to be drying out a little, but I wanted to share some of the challenges that come with being a farmer. The last few weeks have been pretty rough if you’re a farmer in Ohio. The current joke is that Ohio has been […]
Hi everyone, It’s been another wet week (you can see as much from some of my photos below), but overall, things aren’t looking to bad. We thankfully avoided almost all of the hail that slammed a lot of our area a couple nights ago. Hail can be devastating to a fruit farmer even this early […]
It’s finally strawberry season!! We’ve got a few picked berries in the market right now, but we got rained out this morning, so I’m not sure how long they’ll last and if we’ll be able to pick many more today. However, tomorrow and going forward, we’re hoping to have a good supply every day for […]
I’ve always been interested in genetics and plant breeding. I actually took a lot of genetics as part of my biochem program as an undergrad. One thing that many people don’t know is that apples aren’t self-fertile. To “make” an apple, some vector (generally a bee) takes pollen from one apple variety and applies it […]
Spring is our second busiest time of year, after fall harvest. Between getting the pruning done and getting all the perennial crops ready for the season, and then getting all the vegetable fields ready and planted, it’s nonstop for a couple of months. Since we don’t yet have our own greenhouse, I order seed every […]
Spring at the Orchard means pruning all the trees, tons of planting, and bloom. It’s probably the prettiest time to visit our farm. Here are a few shots I’ve taken in the last couple weeks. Spring really can make or break us every year. Bees are critical for pollination in most of our crops, and […]
Peaches – The bad news first. We sold out of the last of the Encore peaches this past weekend. We’re done with peaches until next year. Apples – Now the good news. We’ve got over a dozen varieties of apples in the market right now, including Honeycrisp. In the last couple weeks, we’ve picked Gala, […]
Wow, it’s been a crazy last few weeks! First off, I’m now a dad. Amanda gave birth to our baby Abigail, and they’re both doing great. It’s been a blur of happiness and excitement, combined with lots of wailing, sleeplessness, feedings, and diapers. And did I mention, we’re really, really happy?! So Amanda is stepping […]