North Star Orchard

When introduced to a guest at a party recently, I shared that I work in an orchard. He seemed surprised and responded, “You mean, like, picking fruit?” We chatted briefly and since that conversation I’ve been thinking about everything that leads up to the iconic, but brief, moment of picking fruit within the context of the entire growing season.

Looking back nearly 6 months to frozen ground and blankets of snow, it’s strange to think of the trees as leafless holdouts waiting for their time to shine. With comfy boots and layers of warm clothing, I embraced winter as the time for pruning and learning about all of the different growth habits and training systems for the trees. It was hard to imagine these naked branches being weighed down with clusters of fruit and trying to prune accordingly – they didn’t even have leaves yet!

But before long, the trees burst into bloom and the orchard transformed from bare-boned rows of trees into stunning blocks of pink and white flowers. With spring under way, we focused on tying and training the trees to desired shapes and growing habits: “V’s” for peaches and nectarines; central leaders and open centers for apples, pears, Asian pears, and plums.

With the time for tying and training passed, thinning continues to be the main task, especially among the Asian pears. At first, it seems terrible to snip off so many tiny fruits, but after seeing (and tasting!) the size and quality that the remaining fruit achieves, the hours devoted to thinning are definitely worthwhile.

In the middle of everything, we found time to graft dozens of different apple, pear and peach varieties, notching together rootstocks that control the size of a tree, with scion-wood of the desired tree varieties. The grafts and hundreds of apple trees grown from seed were planted in two new on-farm nurseries.

Watching them bolt into waist-high trees has been exciting sign that there are still so many new and antique varieties of fruit to grow and try – it just takes a few years. I’ve already been so impressed by the Purple Heart and Early Golden plums, Pristine and Redfree apples, Eastern Glo nectarines, and GaLa peaches that were new to me this season!

So in response to my fellow party guest’s earlier question about working in an orchard, in addition to pruning, tying, grafting, planting, weeding, thinning, tasting, and all of the surrounding tasks, my condensed answer is “Yes! – Picking fruit!”

(Sophie has been a full-time helper since spring 2007)

Background: I don’t really keep track of what I’ve done in the past… there’s too much to do in the present! Plus, I always have to be on the look out for rabbits, treats, concrete trucks, and Amish buggies… I can’t spend time thinking about the past. What if one of them shows up?!

Why are you working at North Star Orchard? Wait, I’m working? I was just having fun… that’s not work!

What do you want to do when you grow up? I’m four… I’m already grown up!

Least favorite farm job: Fighting groundhogs, accidentally biting frogs, going in the house, hiding from thunder, waiting for Mom to come home.

Favorite farm job: Getting treats and toys, chasing concrete trucks that go past my house, barking at buggies, scouring the farm to chase out those pesky rabbits, watching people do things in the barn.

Favorite vegetable/ fruit: I really like Housi Asian pears and some of the really sweet apples. Carrots and Brussels sprouts are awesome, too.

Favorite flavor of ice cream: I’m not sure if the blog’s reading audience would want to know just what I like to snack on while I’m running around the farm…

(Jay helps out part-time every year.)

Background: I’ve been homeschooled all my life, which has given me a great chance to really follow my interests during all the times at public schools which are wasted (role call, travel [on the bus and between classes], dealing with loud/obnoxious kids, etc.). Thanks to having a more flexible schedule, I have more time to really focus on what I want to do. Right now, that is web programming and other computer science topics.

Why are you working at North Star Orchard? Well, the most obvious thing, maybe, is that it is a very convenient place for me to work, since I live right there. I’ve grown up with the farm, so I think my personality has really been influenced by the work I’ve been doing… rather than coming in to work with preconceived notions of what I do and don’t like, what I like doing, and by extension why I’m working at North Star, are based on my work experiences. Finally, I can’t deny that it’s nice to have a seasonal source of income.

What do you want to do when you grow up? At this point I’m looking towards following some sort of programming, Internet, or other computer-y type path. I haven’t quite settled on just where in that (admittedly vast) field I want to go into, but I’m hoping that the computer science class I’m taking at the Chester County Technical College High School will help me more firmly solidify the details.

Least favorite farm job: Moving all the 40+ pound crates of fruit out of a small box truck in a space of an hour or two. Those things are heavy.

Favorite farm job: Talking to customers at farmers’ markets. Market-goers tend to be really friendly, and it’s been great getting to know some of our customers.

Favorite vegetable/ fruit: Apples. There’s just so much variety!

Favorite flavor of ice cream: Chocolate chip cookie dough. Not real healthy, but even farmers need to give in sometimes.

(Liedeke helps out part-time. Last year, she helped on the farm, this year, she’s helping at a farmers’ market)

Background: As a wee child, I spent my time being home-schooled by my parents, attending home-school co-ops, and playing with my three sisters. That lasted for a few glorious years (up through 9th grade), when I went to a charter school in West Chester. I spent the last two years of high school at Octorara, and am now at Delaware Technical & Community College.

Why are you working at North Star Orchard? Mainly because I need a job while I am in college. That being said, I started working at the farm because I enjoy being and working outside. As of now, I am only working at markets, which is completely different work than at the farm, although no less enjoyable. Markets are fun because of the interaction with customers. Everyone is so relaxed and happy that they are getting delicious fruit. I look forward to market days because of the interactions with customers!

What do you want to do when you grow up? That’s a good question! I know that I love learning about science, and why the world works the way that it does. So, I’m aiming to get a degree in Quantitative Biology at the University of Delaware. I’ll see what opportunities arise after that, and figure it out as I go!

Least favorite farm job: Vacuuming harlequin beetles. Vacuuming beetles may sound like fun at first, but after a few hours of searching under Brussels sprout leaves for signs of insects, it gets pretty old.

Favorite farm job: Picking sugar snap peas. Also, at market stocking plums in the morning.

Favorite vegetable/ fruit: Tomatoes and White Lady peaches.

Favorite flavor of ice cream: Mint Chocolate Chip

(Lisa is co-owner of North Star Orchard)

Background:I caught the farming ‘bug’ while attending Penn State and working on the student farm one summer. Although I was in college for education (I wanted to teach high school chemistry), I found working on the student farm to be very challenging and rewarding work. As I was dating (and soon to be married to) a guy whose plan was to farm, the decision to switch majors was a fairly easy one. I’ve enjoyed the best of both farming and teaching careers, as I’ve homeschooled our son Jay straight through from K to 12. (Although I never did teach him high school chemistry!)

Why are you working at North Star Orchard?:While this answer is fairly obvious (because I own the business), I will say this: when Ike and I started North Star Orchard in 1992, we had absolutely NO idea what we were in for! Challenges like extreme weather, taking on debt, managing an ever-increasing pool of employees, working 12 to 15-hour days during harvest time, and figuring out our goals/marketing plan have been both tough and sometimes awesome to figure out. Getting to know so many great people, including the aforementioned employees as well as our CSA members and farmers’ market customers has been a joy – and a most excellent reward for all of our hard work and worry!

What do you want to do when you grow up?: I think I’ve mostly hit this one already. Some things I’d like to do in the future: find more time to do artwork and writing. At least most winters I can squeeze a bit of each in! I’d also like to do some on-farm educational programs in the future, as well as add a few chickens and a pig or two to the farm.

Favorite farm job (so far!): Thinning Asian pears. I get to listen to a lot of great audiobooks when I’m in midst of thinning mode. This year, I went through most of Charles Dickens’ books. Previous years were focused on history, the sciences, philosophy, etc.

Least favorite farm job: Thinning Asian pears! Ok, that job is a love-hate relationship. The task is completely daunting, as there’s so much to do. For the first half of thinning season, I get stressed that we’ll never get done on time. During the second half of thinning season, I get stressed that we’re not doing a good-enough job. Ugh!

Favorite vegetable/fruit: Veggies: Swiss Chard and beets. Fruit: just about any plums, plus Golden Russet and Gold Rush apples

Favorite ice cream: Espresso Chip (although I’ll take anything that I can add chocolate syrup to!)

You might think by the title of this essay that you know what I’m going to talk about. Here we are, after all, a small farm being directly (and positively) impacted by the ‘Local Foods Movement’. But our journey into the Local Foods Movement (LFM) might be a little bit surprising.

My journey into the LFM didn’t begin with a childhood background filled with sandals and hippy-trippy flower power (although there was a little bit of that, surely). Nor, surprisingly enough, did it begin with the start of our farm back in 1992, nearly 20 years ago now.

I am actually loathe to tell you about some of my very non-local-foods past. I do this as a means of encouragement….if I could do it, so can you! Back when I was in college (and remember, I was a cash-poor college student, after all), my lunch of choice for about – dare I admit it? – two years was a can of Coke, a package of those Lance brand wheat and cheese crackers, and a Tastycake brand chocolate chip cookie bar (or, better yet, the fudge bar!). I kid you not; that’s what I ate for almost every weekday lunch. Eeuuwww!

Not that my breakfasts or dinners were much better, really. I remember eating ‘Life’ cereal daily for years, and dinner could be spaghetti (not too bad, perhaps) or – wait for it – Chef Boyardee Mini Ravioli (yep – that delectable stuff from a can). But hey, if I can not only survive, but make so much progress, so can anyone, right? Happily, now I eat greens nearly daily, plus lots of other veggies, fruit all the time, my meat has to be sustainably- and humanely-raised, and I do my darndest to avoid high fructose corn syrup in anything. So, I do think I’ve made some major progress on the food front!

Back in those processed food-eating days, Ike and I were newly married and starting our senior year of college. Perhaps my routine diet was crap, but I did like vegetables and fruits when I had them. The only ‘good stuff’ Ike would eat, on the other hand, were carrots, sweet corn, potatoes, lettuce, and beer (beer counts as a grain, does it not? Ok, forget it). And although the ‘adults’ in our world always stressed the importance of eating wisely, we were still in the 20 year-old “We’re free and out on our own, and we’re going to eat whatever WE feel like eating!” phase of quasi-adulthood.

So, there we went getting into growing fruits and vegetables both during and right after college. An oxymoron, perhaps? Nonsensical maybe? Easily explained, really. Ike had always grown produce while he was growing up, loved doing it, and wanted to do it for a living. Nevermind that he didn’t like actually EATING much of anything he grew. The fruit, yes – but veggies? Icky-poo.

For my part, I hated helping with the family garden growing up, although I loved eating the results (remember, they say opposites attract) – so I could never see myself wanting to work in a garden for a living. But, by my junior year of college, I was starting to develop a mortal fear of going into the workforce. Training in chemistry and secondary education, as I was, the notion of graduating and being ‘stuck’ in a building day in and day out for the REST OF MY LIFE was terrifying. Working on the student farm for two summers opened my eyes to a different opportunity, and I went for it.

One thing and another led us to starting our own farm. But it wasn’t because we were into local or sustainably-grown or organic or anything. It was because HE liked growing, and I liked being outdoors to work (except in winter, that is, when I was and still am a complete weather-weenie). I am happy to say that we had, at least, shed some of our evil ways in regards to poor food choices by that point. Now there were (hardly ever) any cans of Chef Boyardee in the house, and when there were, they were HIS – honestly!

Fast-forward a couple years and I stopped eating all meat, because the notion of unnecessary hormones and antibiotics in my meat grossed me out. Over time, more of the processed foods went, too. I’ll happily note here that our son has never eaten ANY Chef Boyardee (or Twinkies). And veggies for Ike? It was still a long, slow struggle over this period.

And then, soon enough, the LFM was upon us. Of course, we were wrapped up within it from the start, as we sell all of our fruits and veggies to folks at farmers’ markets and through the CSA. But we saw mighty changes, both in the minds of customers and in ours, as things continued to change.

GMOs, CAFOs, water and fuel shortages, food-borne illnesses, etc. All of those have had impacts, as have many outspoken people who have reached the public consciusness, such as Michael Pollan (‘Omnivore’s Dilemma’), Barbara Kingsolver (‘Animal, Vegetable, Miracle’), and even Michelle Obama (backyard gardening). The web brought us localharvest.org, consumer demand brought new farms into existence, demand for CSAs and producer-only markets increased almost exponentially. There were amazing things to think about, talk about, do about.

I’m now eating meat again, but only from people I know, and only pork and chicken, as I feel they are more in keeping with a sustainable future (they eat scraps to give us food, whereas cattle eat food (or potential food) to give us food). And my veggie quotient is through the roof. Ike, who took up cooking several years ago and is mighty good at it, is eating all kinds of veggies (even greens like Swiss Chard and arugula!) – pretty much everything we grow, really. He may never be able to choke down a plain raw tomato or a serving of peas, but that’s ok, as I’m likely to never enjoy radishes. But, who’s counting?

The point is, we’ve managed to go from just about as bad of a diet as one can have to the opposite – and it wasn’t that hard! The trick is to keep trying things…even those you’re not familiar with. Growing up, my family NEVER made greens or beets. Since I discovered how yummy they are some years ago, I’ve been making up for lost time. It’s all a matter of trying things in different ways – and thank goodness for the internet for offering a seemingly never-ending supply of recipes!

You’ve gotten into the Local Foods Movement too, one way or another. And for most of you, it has likely made for a fantastic change in your own food habits, hasn’t it? Admit it…there’s probably crap food in your background that you are glad is now gone.

We can hope that more and more people hop on board. Great food and good health await!

(Josh is a full-time seasonal helper this year)

Background: I grew up gardening with my mom.  We had a small veggie garden that consisted of 4 raised beds.  Just recently, my wife and I started a much larger garden with over 40 varieties of vegetables, herbs and fruits- this keeps us busy all summer long.  When we have eaten our fill, we can most of our extra harvest.  This way, we are fed almost all year!

Why are you working at North Star Orchard?: I love working at North Star Orchard, not just because Ike and Lisa are the best bosses, ever.  A supporter of CSAs and sustainability, this farm allows me to work someplace that I not only enjoy but share similar values.

What do you want to do when you grow up?: As I look towards my future, I see myself continuing to work in this field.  It may be hard work, but it is something that is important to me and my family.  Plus, who doesn’t like to literally enjoy the ‘fruits’ of their labor?!

Favorite farm job (so far!): My favorite job here on the farm is hoeing because it is so much fun.

Least favorite farm job: My least favorite farm job is gathering the kale. 

Favorite vegetable/fruit: I love Brussels sprouts, especially when they are sautéed with some garlic and olive oil (and cooked by my wife!)
Favorite ice cream: Mint chocolate chip- please note that I will accept ice cream donations willingly.

(Erin, our orcharding assistant, is a full-time helper who has been with us since April 2009)

Background: Originally from Ohio, I majored in Peace & Global Studies in college, with lots of gardening and farming experiences mixed in.  After graduating, I lived in Philadelphia for several years, where I worked for a grassroots food security organization and Greensgrow, an urban farm in Kensington.  When i decided that I really wanted to farm, I left to do an Apprenticeship in Ecological Horticulture at the University of California in Santa Cruz. 

Why are you working at North Star Orchard?: I wanted to learn more about fruit trees, return to the Philadelphia area for awhile longer, and eat myself sick on Asian pears.  But seriously, I had loved North Star’s fruit that I had purchased at markets in Philly, and I was impressed with the diversity of fruit at the orchard and their professionalism.

What do you want to do when you grow up?: I daydream about having my own farm and homestead, very small scale, influenced by permaculture principles, growing lots of unusual crops of all kinds…  Whether or not that will make any money is a whole other question.

Favorite farm job (so far!): Harvesting

Least favorite farm job: Heavy lifting.

Favorite vegetable/fruit: arugula & sugar snap peas, purple heart plums & Hosui Asian pears
Favorite ice cream: Caramel

(Laura is a full-time seasonal helper this year)

Background: I grew up in Chadds Ford, PA and have always had a great love for food and the outdoors. Although I was quite upset with my mom in elementary school because I had no paper bag lunches with wonder bread sandwiches and juice boxes like my friends, by late high school and college I started educating myself more about environmental issues while getting a bachelor’s degree in psychology and studio art

Why are you working at North Star Orchard?: After working for a year and a half as a mental health case worker with children and families who had little or no access to healthy and sustainable food, and feeling surrounded on all sides by fast food chains on a daily basis, I needed to reconnect with real food and wanted to learn more about small scale agriculture

What do you want to do when you grow up?: I would love to one day design sustainable public spaces as a landscape architect or educate young people about making healthy choices for themselves and the world they live in.  I’d also like to have a big, big garden

Favorite farm job (so far!): Harvesting Swiss chard. I completely enjoy it; putting them in bunches is like arranging beautiful flowers!

Least favorite farm job: Putting up row covers on a windy day

Favorite vegetable/fruit: I love love love seckel pears and every kind of fresh beefsteak tomato I’ve ever tried
Favorite ice cream: chocolate fudge brownie

(Genevieve is a full-time seasonal helper this year)

Background: My educational background is in city planning, and I’ve been involved with and passionate about local food in Philly for the past few years. Originally, I grew up in the beautiful mountains of northeast Tennessee, and I’m from a family of 5 (one of whom is a twin brother).

Why are you working at North Star Orchard?: I’m interested in really learning how an organic farm operates; I want literal hands-on experience to understand how it all works and to see if it’s the life and work for me.

What do you want to do when you grow up?: I want to be a happy, compassionate, and productive human being.

Favorite farm job (so far!): At this point, it’s probably transplanting, as you feel like you’re filling out the farm and setting the veggies off to really start growing!

Least favorite farm job: I’d say any task where you’re likely to be surprised by multi-legged insects (like moving a long-standing rock pile) is not on my list of favorites.

Favorite vegetable/fruit: I really love lemon cucumbers and blueberries.
Favorite ice cream: Chocolate chip cookie dough is a great one.