North Star Orchard

If I had a hammer,
I’d hammer in the mornin’,
I’d hammer in the evenin’,
All over this land!
-American Folk Song

The deep echoes of Bill hammering orchard clips to the new trellises mixed in the air with the tap-tap of John and Melissa removing nails that held insulation board in the barn’s northern addition. These familiar sounds were like the voices of these friends, reminding you that they too were working toward a new year – setting up shop for new trees to be planted and barns to be re-purposed. Meanwhile Brint and I were deconstructing the eastern wing of the old pony shed to make it into a more fitting garden shed. We found bridles and horse mats, Legos and filled half a bucket of nails and screws from years of horse-related additions to this old chicken coop.

The hammer – that one tool which reaches across all boundaries; sneaking into even a grandmother’s house with a purple flower handle and filling the corners of our workshops as sledges and rubber mallets. My earliest memories of working with hand tools were trying to pound old roofing nails into firewood in our living room. My girls love to find the smallest hammers available and “help” me in the shop. They most often find scraps of wood and create high chairs and tables for their baby dolls, with lots of help from Mama of course! Last winter I bought Josh a new hammer and as I opened the gift from him we were both laughing – he bought me one too! We joke that it was the year we got “hammered” at Christmas!

As a farmer, many tools fill our sheds and benches. Over the past few years I’ve found that there are several I can’t live without. I love the scuffle hoe, the hand cultivator, the seeder, and the wheel hoe. But at this time of year all of these have been washed and put away. Out come the hammers and the sanders, the screw guns and the circular saws. During the summer these tools make an occasional appearance, but the work of growing food fills most of the day and they are merely for fixing garden tools or greenhouses. In these winter months there is more time for creative projects and demolition too.

We enjoy working with our hands in a different way, building new structures and as we disassemble others we think of those gone before and the kind of farming they lived by. In a book entitled Winter Poems I came across this one, it paints a perfect picture of what winter looks like for those of us who live in the soil:

Oregon Winter
The rains begin. This is no summer rain.
Dropping the blotches of wet on the dusty road:
This rain is slow, without thunder or hurry:
There is plenty of time – there will be months of raink
Lost in the hills, the old gray farmhouses
Hump their backs against it, and the smoke from their chimneys
Struggles through the weighted air. The sky is sodden with water,
It sags against the hills, and the wild geese,
Wedge flying, brush the heaviest cloud with their wings.
The farmers move unhurried. The wood is in,
The hay has long been in, the barn lofts piled
Up to the high windows, dripping yellow straws.
There will be plenty of time now, time that will smell of fires,
And drying leather, and catalogs, and apple cores.
The farmers clean their boots, and whittle, and drowse.

-Jeanne McGahey

I came to work last Monday morning unsure of what to expect in the wake of Hurricane Irene. I didn’t bother asking the obvious questions about the state of the orchard – Is there any fruit left on the trees? How many trees blew over? Can we straighten them back into place?

As the morning unfolded, we tackled one task at a time, feeling the pressure of a full schedule and growing to-do list. Stepping away from the normal work of picking and sorting, we added work we had to allot time for: Clearing downed trees from the driveway and the orchard – 12 hours; hammering stakes and pulling fruit trees back into position – 15 hours; straightening hundreds of blown-over young trees in the nursery – 5 hours; and still so much more to do.

Rows of Asian pears became most noticeable by the fruit covering the ground, rather than hanging from the trees. A stretch of large plum trees looks pretty good, until you begin asking if they were all leaning slightly before the storm. Toppled-over peaches and apples are much more obviously affected; lying down with roots straining in the soil or snapped beyond survival.

Yet, in the midst of visible signs of the weather’s unpredictability and the time spent repairing what was damaged, the regular work moves forward. Crimson Crisp and huge Royalty apples turn glowing reds and deep purples that signal they are ready to be picked. Fantasia nectarines ripen and get picked for their third time. Hosui Asian pears move from green to tan as the flavor goes from good to exceptional, and the trees yield dozens of bushels of ripe fruit.

While a lot of work still remains to clean up after the storm, I’m seeing the practical merit of growing such a wide variety of trees on different training systems in the orchard. When you see how the damage from last weekend affected those varieties closest to being picked, but didn’t devastate the orchard entirely, growing dozens of varieties that ripen at different times not only keeps the orchard exciting, but makes sense in a business so deeply affected by the weather. So as we keep working to straighten trees back into position and get the orchard back into order, there is more than enough fruit to keep busy picking as we continue moving forward through the season.

There’s something about working in the tree nursery that’s really exciting.

Witnessing trees in their earliest stages and growing so quickly provides a perfect complement for the more consistent work of picking.

Earlier this spring, we grafted hundreds of pieces of scion wood from desirable varieties to rootstocks that determine tree size, and since then I’ve been intrigued by the whole process of raising young fruit trees.

Maybe it’s the rows of fluttering nametags for all of the pears, peaches and apples that I’ve never heard of before, but which have stories behind them. (The picture here shows apple trees on the right and peaches on the left in the nursery)

Or, it could be the different types of grafting, like T-Bud grafting, where next year’s flower buds are placed under the bark of peach rootstocks which were previously planted and already looked like small trees.

Even weeding seems so rewarding when you expose the contrast between rows of young vigorous trees stretching toward the sky and the dark and crumbly soil in which they are anchored.

As we dealt with weeks of hot and dry weather earlier this summer, a lot of the newly grafted trees did not make the sensitive union to begin growing together, and several withered.

However, some of the grafts which looked snapped or bent way beyond hope have taken hold and are growing to heights over my head, even with a 90-degree bend where they were grafted! The 5-foot tall bamboo stakes that support the trees seemed like overkill at first, when the trees were a knee-high, but are now steadily being outgrown.

While it takes a lot of time to work with so many tiny trees, grafting is often the only means for accessing a lot of different varieties.

Many of the varieties of scion wood selected come from smaller orchards and nurseries during the spring, so when they don’t graft successfully, it can be a frustrating wait until new wood can be ordered for another try the following year. Still, for every tree that didn’t make it, a bunch did, which means we are well on our way in an exciting several-year journey to taste even more untried (for us) fruit varieties and flavors.

Really…just look at them. With nifty patterns of variegated brown symmetrically arranged on its back, it could be the model for a new variation on hunters’ camouflage gear or other apparel dye patterns. It’s really pretty neat….beautiful in fact, if you don’t think too much about what the patterns and colors are attached to.

And the smell of the stinkbugs? Well, scratch and sniff. For some folks, the smell is downright revolting. For others (like me) it smells kind of like paper. Some people smell cilantro. So it’s weird, but not always completely offensive (unless you think about it).

The brown marmorated stinkbug (BMSB), as you may have heard, is wreaking havoc all over the midAtlantic states, and is spreading further. Florida is very worried about its arrival.

BMSBs are an invasive pest which are native to the Japan and China. They were first discovered in Pennsylvania in the late 90s, and have multiplied in such numbers that they’re invading homes and destroying crops. Their native predators, alas, did not travel with them, so they are pretty much on their own here and having a grand feasting party.

BMSBs love all kinds of fruits and veggies. Fruits like peaches, nectarines, apples, and Asian pears are very tasty to them (and hey, why not?). Their favorite vegetable around here seems to be edamame soybeans and sweet corn, but they’ll dabble in other veggies as well. They literally suck on the fruit in question, and leave a dimpled area. Sometimes (like if their dinner was interrupted), that’s all you’ll see is a dimple. Other times (when they can feast uninterrupted) the interior flesh may be discolored a bit or even a little ‘corky’. It’s not harmful to eat it or eat around it, thankfully.

For large commercial farms which sell to wholesale markets, any amount of BMSB damage on the crop makes it completely unsaleable. Some reports show that $37 million in crop sales were lost last year due to BMSB nibbling. Ouch. And it’s only going to be worse this year. Since the wholesale (ie. grocery store) market demands perfect, farms which rely on wholesaling are getting hammered.

Meanwhile, lots of studies are being conducted looking for ways to control the problem. Importing the BMSB’s natural predator is being considered, new chemical sprays are being studied and developed, and other less invasive means are being considered. Here at the farm, we are currently talking with a company which is trying to develop a solar-powered BMSB trapping system for commercial application. We’ll keep you posted on developments!

In the meantime….what is the beauty of stinkbugs?
1. They do look kind of neat (if you don’t mind antennae and creepy-crawly legs)
2. We’re all in the same boat here: you’ve got them in your houses and I have them on my farm. So, we can commiserate together (the ties that bind and all).
3. A little dimpling is just that….a little dimpling. Adds character perhaps?? We’ll keep the fruits the BMSBs really feasted on (like those pictured here) at home, but we trust that the occasional dimple in your fruit will be tolerated.

We’re all in the same boat on this one, and until a (hopefully non-toxic) solution is found, the BMSB will just bring us closer together. Complaints about them can continue now!

I’ve gotten a number of questions lately about how to keep various vegetables from wilting in the refrigerator. People are often surprised to find carrots wobbly and soft after several days in the fridge, not to mention the condition of lettuce or chard after the same period of time.

Remember – most vegetables are very high in water content. The chilly air in a refrigerator is very dry, and sucks moisture out of all produce (even beets will get wilted!).

However, since our vegetables are picked so fresh, they should keep a very long time for you in the refrigerator….IF you make sure to keep that moisture contained! For most items, that simply means putting them in a tightly-sealed plastic bag or sealed container and trying to make sure most of the air is removed.

Plastic bags can be used over and over again for various vegetables, and you’ll find that even our fresh lettuces will keep upwards of two weeks in this manner! Carrots stay crispy, chard stays puffy and brilliant, you get the idea!

A farm is not an island. Well, it could be on an island. It could even own an island. Mmmm…farming on a tropical island sounds mighty nice. I’ll have to think more on that…

But what I mean here is that a farm is not an entity unto itself; it depends on the support of many others. The obvious others? The farm owners, our farm helpers, customers, and CSA members. The not-so-obvious others are the business and individuals without which the farm could not function and, well, grow.

For us there’s any number of important support others. This is like the list of credits at the end of a movie. Most people know they’re there, but they don’t really watch them. For those few of you who might be watching, here’s some of the business/people in our ‘credits’:

Stoltzfus Farm Service
Anderson Truck and Auto
Radbill Automotive
One Village Coffee
Perk
Chester County Crop Care
Nolt’s Produce Supply
Rainflo Irrigation
Bauman Family Apple Butter
Tie Dye Guru
Google
Constant Contact
Veni Vortex
Siteground
Credo Mobile
Phil Brown Welding
Kubota
Giant
Turkey Hill
Inverbrook Farm
Pennypack Farm
Charlestown Farm
Quiet Creek Farm
CCEDC (w/ Suzanne Milshaw)
Farmers’ Markets: West Chester, Phoenixville, Oakmont, Headhouse, Clark Park, Emmaus, Upper Merion – and all the people who work hard to make those markets happen.
…and more

Who’s on YOUR list of credits?

By now, many many people know what CSA stands for, but in case you’ve missed it, it is “Community Supported Agriculture”.

And now, for a bit of history:

Its roots reach back more than 30 years to Japan where a group of women concerned about the increase in food imports and the corresponding decrease in the farming population initiated a direct growing and purchasing relationship between their group and local farms. This arrangement, called “teikei” in Japanese, translates to “putting the farmers’ face on food.” The concept traveled to Europe and America, where it was given the name “Community Supported Agriculture” at Indian Line Farm, Massachusetts in 1985.

In this country, the differences between CSAs are as vast as the number of CSAs. While they are primarily vegetable-based, many offer fruits as well. Meat, cheese, and even grain/flour CSAs are in existence. Most CSAs have members sign up early, sometimes even the fall prior, while others have various payment plans, or account-balance-based structures. Some CSAs have hefty work requirements of members, while others do not have any. The list of differences goes on.

What CSAs all have in common, though, is a significant connection between farmers and consumers.

I argue, however, that perhaps we should be making a shift to calling them ASCs instead; Agriculture Supported Communities. With all the buzz about ‘local’ and ‘sustainable’, shouldn’t we be looking at ASC as a model?

There’s something that seems not-quite-right when some CSAs are delivering veggies all over Philadelphia, and pushing 60 to 100 miles from their home base to do it. There are farmers who are traveling 3 hours and more to sell at Philadelphia and New York City farmers’ markets. Please note I am not dissing these operations, just making a point. Personally, it seems somehow not-quite-right for me to be schlepping Fruit Shares to Horsham and Kutztown, each of which are 40 miles distant, or going to a farmers’ market 60 miles away. It’s not that I don’t want those folks to get my fruit – not in the slightest – but now that ‘local’ and ‘CSA’ and ‘sustainable’ are gaining such momentum, I think we must watch out for how to encourage things to ‘travel’ in the right direction.

It wouldn’t make sense, after all, if a Lancaster-based CSA were delivering shares to Philly, while an urban or suburban Philly farm couldn’t sell all the shares it had available to sell. And although there are no other local Fruit Shares like ours available in the area at this time, if one did pop up near Kutztown but had to deliver shares to our own Chester County area, we’d be passing each other on delivery day. Sounds goofy, huh? But that’s just what has happened as commodity agriculture grew. As a nation, we are exporting apples TO China, and importing apples FROM China. Where’s the sense in that? Same thing goes for all kinds of other crops and businesses.

So, what we need to be on the lookout for, and work towards, is making sure that things make sense. Work towards ASC: If you’re joining a CSA, choose one close to home. And then, as years pass, make sure it’s STILL the closest one to home. While I’d hate to say goodbye to long-term members of ours who live at somewhat of a distance, I would enjoy saying ‘hello’ to new members who live in our own county. While I’d be sad to leave some far-flung farmers’ markets that I’ve gone to for years, I’d be happy to supply my direct neighbors with food, knowing at the same time that other new farms are supplying the people I used to. Of course, new orchards are far and few between, as the development costs, in both time and expense, are so friggin’ high. But, new farms will come along if we all, as a community, can show that there is the need and desire for them.

In days gone by, we all practiced ASC. Little hamlets and small towns relied on their own neighborhood farmers to feed them. We are living in an environment so gosh-darned suited to agriculture that there is no reason why we cannot again practice ASC. But, of course, many people are still unaware of the concept of buying local, or may be unwilling to practice it. They may think it too expensive or inconvenient. But such feelings and attitudes are changing; we’ve been watching it happen.

Community as a word has come to represent just about any group: Facebook friends, online gaming groups, etc. Community as a locale would be a great thing to bring back as its major definition. Imagine knowing personally your shoemaker, cheesemaker, electrical engineer, jelly maker, and farmer – because you lived near them, worked with them, and supported each other in business. I think we may be headed that way. ASC is one of the first steps.

ASC would really be teikei. But, we’d love to see things go further than that. Let’s really see the consumers’ faces, as well as the doctors’, the mailmans’, and yes, even the garbage collectors’. It takes all of us to build community.

For a great example, watch this video about what a small town in Vermont has done! (Grab your coffee, this one is about 20 minutes long, but worth it!)

I probably wouldn’t be working at North Star Orchard if it weren’t for the Asian pears. It’s true – they’re what drew my attention to this farm years ago at Philadelphia farmers’ markets. I’m not the only one; they truly have a cult following. I’ll often open my mouth to answer a question about them at a market, only to have another customer standing nearby answer enthusiastically for me. I’ve heard about Asian pears shipped away to kids at college who are yearning for a taste of home, and about some that are shipped each year to relatives in Europe. I know my parents won’t let me in the door at Christmas-time if I don’t bring pears along.

So many people love them, but they’re still a bit of a mystery to most. What are these things? These “apple pears,” “Korean pears,” “sand pears,” “salad pears,” nashi? Well, “apple pear” is misleading; they really have nothing to do with apples, except that they share a plant family (Rosaceae). What they actually are is another species of pear, Pyrus pyrifolia, that has been traditionally grown in Japan, China, and Korea. You’ve been eating them for weeks (if not years) now, so I don’t have to tell you what they taste like, or about their characteristic crunch. Unlike “European” pears, Asian pears are picked ripe and ready to eat – none of that guesswork about when it’s reached its moments-long window of peak ripeness before turning to unpleasant mush in the center. Keep them in your fridge loosely in a plastic bag and they’ll keep for weeks. (Especially good to know this time of year when the CSA’s ending!)

Perhaps the Asian pear fervor is only unusual in this country where fruit generally serves as a sort of placeholder. We’re not accustomed to great flavor, but rather a healthy something to tide us over or fill a lunch bag. Most of us grew up on inoffensive-at-best apples and identical-looking bananas, definitely nothing to get excited about. In Asia, however, where these pears come from, they’re served as a special treat or gift or shared around the table after a meal. Here, as well, I sense that Asian pears are treated as something special. If nothing else, the price inspires a bit more awe than we’re used to affording a piece of fruit, and reflects the hours spent hand-thinning the crop as well as their fragile nature.

All season long I’ve been looking forward to learning more about these pears and their traditional uses, and I have to confess, I haven’t been too successful. There still isn’t that much information out there, readily available on the information superhighway (in English anyway). I was, however, able to find a bit on their usage in traditional Chinese medicine. From Kitchen Medicine Cooking Medicine, a blog about Food, Herbs, and Philosophy from Ayurveda and Chinese Medicine:

“The most common Kitchen Medicine in the East for the lungs are Pears. Pears are cooling and moistening which in moderation is how the lungs like to be. Not only do pear’s cool energy counteract the heat building in your lungs with infection, but their viscous moist quality is a natural lubricant for the mucous membranes of the lungs, with expectorant qualities, too.

Bite into a ripe pear. Compare with a ripe Apple. Pears have a viscous quality. This is a moistening characteristic that targets the lungs and nasal passages, and makes them excellent food this time of year, raw or cooked.”

Appropriately enough, I was fighting off a cough as I did my research, and it took longer than it should have for me to realize that I should get up off the couch and go steam some Asian pears. I highly recommend this recipe (adapted from Nina Simonds’ A Spoonful of Ginger), even if you’re feeling 100% healthy. Once cooked, the texture of Asian pear is remarkably similar to cooked European pears.

For anyone who’d like to dabble in the world of pickle making, Asian pears can also be used in kimchi. I’d recommend using Olympic, a Korean variety with a little more crunch and tart flavor. Another Korean cooking technique I learned: use Asian pear to marinate and tenderize beef in recipes such as bulgogi and galbi.

Also, one of the nicknames for Asian pears, “salad pears” makes a great suggestion – they go fabulously in salads, providing a sweet and crunchy counterpoint especially to bitter or spicy greens. Finally, online success – a search easily turns up a number of Asian pear salad recipes…

from New York chic (good luck sourcing the mâche outside of Union Square!): Morimoto’s Asian Pear Salad … to a tasty way to balance out bitter endive or escarole: Endive and Asian Pear Salad … to something like this, which comes pretty near my idea of food perfection: Asian Pear and Arugula Salad with Goat Cheese.

All of these suggestions, however, are contingent on any Asian pears lingering beyond the moment you take them out of their bag. The traditional way to eat a North Star Asian pear is, after all, to simply eat it, as soon as possible, caution to the wind with juice flying, a bit of the mystery still intact.

This is the time of year when everyone seems to be fighting off a little something, be it a cold or flu, and I’m grateful that I work outside and am not trapped inside with all those germs. However, we’re all literally “under the weather,” affected by what the sky throws at us, even though we sometimes as a culture pretend not to be. Case in point: Just over a week ago in our area, the Brandywine Creek rose to flood levels and many major state routes as well as smaller roads were closed in places due to high water. But the world carried on, everyone attempting to drive to work as usual. And, surprise! Some were met with confused traffic jams on detour that lasted for hours.

As farmers, we’re one of the few remaining professions in this country that seriously takes the weather into account to plan our day. Often, we North Star employees wake up to phone messages from Ike or Lisa, with the morning’s weather-dependent plan of action for the day. People are often curious how a certain weather event affects what we do at work. If we can, we avoid or plan around working in the rain. Some things can’t happen; peach picking, for example, needs to wait until the peach fuzz has dried off a bit. Tomatoes and peppers shouldn’t be disturbed while their foliage is wet, for fear of spreading fungal diseases. There are inside tasks that can be done, like packing CSA shares, washing vegetables, or planting seeds in the greenhouse. But some days, we have to persevere. Last Monday, with a steady rain and the temperature flirting with fifty degrees, we needed to pick vegetables for the CSA. The week before, with the Olympic pears needing to come off the trees and intermittent rain showers for days, we spent the day out in the orchard, hiding out in the box truck at intervals to avoid the worst of it.

We’re a motley crew on days like this – hats, brightly colored and mismatched rain suits, rubber boots, and – if we’re really desperate – neoprene gloves that act like a wetsuit to keep your hands “warm” in cold water. This is often the limiting factor in rain – nothing will slow you down like cold, numb hands. Wet feet are a close second, and rain seeping down the inside of your sleeves is a major annoyance, but not good enough reason to stop. Spirits are varied on a rainy day. Most of us find our minds wandering to daydreams of a hot cup of tea and a warm blanket; some of us find it “refreshing” and enjoy the challenge.

And what about the trees? How do they feel about the weather? Well, this season I’m sure they’re wishing that the rain could have been spaced out a bit more evenly. All of this rain came as Chester County had entered a drought watch, the lowest of the state’s three official classifications of drought conditions. Some of the trees were affected, their fruit ripening even earlier than expected (in a year when the season’s already ahead of schedule) and dropping fruit prematurely due to drought stress, which complicated our efforts to pick the fruit at the optimum moment. Rainstorms can also be detrimental, with high winds flinging fruit from trees. Full-size Olympic pears flying around; now that’s no joke! For this reason, we take special care to remove the fruit from the tips of branches when we’re thinning the Asian pear crop. And you can imagine the impact of even a brief hail storm on an orchard. A whole season’s harvest can be ruined in a matter of minutes. We had a not-so-severe hailstorm this summer; perhaps you’ve even seen a piece of fruit or two that was “kissed by the hail” with a tiny, cosmetic blemish. Other weather events can have a lasting impact on the trees. While an annual crop can be wiped out and tilled in, perennial crops like fruit trees are an investment. When disaster strikes, you try to pick up the pieces as best you can. Last winter’s blizzard left us scrambling to devise the best way to deal with split peach trees and to correct broken scaffold branches in the young apples.

Obviously (I hope), the weather plays a huge role in agriculture. In an orchard, weather patterns determine which varieties you can plant – different varieties have different levels of cold hardiness and chill requirement; each type of fruit requires certain conditions to reach peak flavor. An apple that loves upstate New York won’t fair as well in southeastern Pennsylvania and vice versa. Weather patterns also make some areas more ideal for growing beautiful fruit. The major fruit producing areas of Washington and California, for example, have a summer dry season without rain, which makes a world of difference for the control of fungal diseases that thrive in wet, humid conditions. Furthermore, in a world where climate change is already manifesting itself in eccentric weather conditions that affect agriculture, a commitment to eating locally means that everyone, not just those of us who spend our days out in the elements, should pay a bit more attention to just how “under the weather” we really are.

There’s a word farmers use to describe the more unusual, rarefied varieties we get a kick out of growing: esoteric. The assumption is that such varieties are appreciated only by other plant geeks and hard core foodies (a word which has an unfortunately negative connotation in my mind – what’s wrong with caring about your food?). The cultivation of such esoteric varieties implies an impractical search for flavor, for the forbidden fruit, the holy grail of the garden.

I’ve always liked the word ‘esoteric,’ and could easily picture what it meant, in farming terms, but I wasn’t quite clear on its precise definition. So I looked it up:

Esoteric adj. a) intended for or understood by only a chosen few, as an inner group of disciples or initiates (said of ideas, literature, etc.) b) beyond the understanding or knowledge of most people; abstruse

(abstruse?!?… “abstruse adj. hard to understand; deep; recondite”… recondite?!?… “recondite adj. Beyond the grasp of the ordinary mind or understanding; profound; abstruse”)

This definition isn’t quite what I was expecting, but it leaves me with the dissatisfaction I was predicting it would. I say it’s not fair that the pursuit of really good flavor is limited to the chosen few. Shouldn’t we all enjoy our food? There is the conundrum that something cool inevitably loses its cachet once it’s gone mainstream, but I think that’s where the local food movement can step in. If small farms were well-supported enough so that the farmers had a bit more breathing room (with their time and finances) and could play a little, they could discover and cultivate all the unusual things that were well-suited to their microclimate. And differences in climate and ecosystem as well as appropriate scale would set natural limits to the spread of certain varieties and foods. So each farmers’ market, CSA, or local food store would have its own unique varieties (say, didn’t that used to be the case, once upon a time, but not so long ago?) We can all be in the inner circle – in our own foodshed.

This sounds like a great scenario to me. It’s a goal of many farmers I know (a few of us at North Star included) to grow things they truly enjoy growing (and eating!). There is, however, often a sort of tug of war between productivity and livelihood on the one hand and passion and creativity on the other. We can all relate to this, right? The need to make a living often leads us to do things that we don’t love to do, even if we’re not compromising our morals by doing them. Planting anything is a gamble, and the first rule of intelligent farming is to have a ready market for what you’re planting. Whether or not those new oddball crops will sell is anybody’s guess. The fruit CSA ameliorates this situation a bit, by providing an infrastructure in which we (the farmers) can grow unusual varieties and have a ready market for them, and you (the consumers) can try new and amazing things without going on a wild goose chase to find them. Just by signing up, suddenly, you’re in that inner circle, and the esoteric is becoming a bit more recognizable.

First-timers walking up to our market stand or checking out the list of varieties that North Star grows won’t see many familiar faces. No Red Delicious, no McIntosh, no Granny Smith…. I think there’s one Fuji tree out there somewhere, and a number of HoneyCrisps for the enthusiasts. But Hudson’s Golden Gem? Esopus Spitzenburg? Adams Pearmain? A season or two, and these are old friends. And you CSA members get first crack, because the small amounts of the unusual varieties go right into the fruit shares.

“But what’s with the wacky names?” you might ask. Many are heirloom varieties, others are new varieties bred for disease resistance, some are North Star originals, some just needed naming – they might be a “numbered variety” (still being tested and not yet or not ever named and released for commercial distribution) or they might be a “mystery variety” that was shipped incorrectly by the nursery. Some of these varieties received the death sentence of “commercially unviable.” But viability looks a little different when you’re growing on only 15 acres, handling fruit by hand, and sending apples to market days after harvest. It also helps to have informed customers who appreciate a variety of flavors throughout the season. It might be humanly impossible to grow all of the hundreds of varieties possible in our southeastern Pennsylvania region, but with the inner circle on board, we can certainly try!