Late Summer Update

As August draws to a close, it's already starting to feel a little like fall in the orchard. Our thoughts are beginning to turn to the fall fruit harvest. Once again, we will welcome our friends and neighbors from throughout the greater Alberton area to come and pick fruit when it's ready. Watch for notifications on our Facebook page when it's time to pick. For most of the fruit, it will be about another month before it's ripe.

Please note that starting this year we are requiring free picking permits to harvest fruit from the orchard. A free permit will automatically be sent to your email address when you fill out this form. [Edit 11/3/21: This link has been taken down because the 2021 picking season is now over. See you all next year!] We will issue permits in person to anyone without email or Internet access if they simply stop by the house and ask. You may wonder why we're requiring a permit. There are two reasons. Since we can't be at the orchard all the time, we would like to know who is using the orchard and when. This is important to address liability issues and for assessment in case of any damage to the orchard. We would also simply like to know how much fruit the orchard is supplying to the local community. As we begin to apply for grants to improve the orchard, it would be nice to be able to quantify the positive impact the orchard is having on the community.

The exceptionally hot, dry summer we had this year had an impact on fruit production. Although there is still plenty of fruit, the apples and pears are smaller than normal. We are also getting a lot of natural dropping of the fruit. If anyone would like to pick this windfallen fruit up off the ground for use by their pigs or other animals, feel free to come and get as much as you like, no permit required. This is helpful to us by reducing the attraction to bears.

Finally, we would like to thank ECHO, Inc. for donating a new string trimmer (aka weed whacker) to the orchard. The old weed whacker used for decades by Norman Brovold (pictured, age 92) is worn out, and ECHO graciously filled a need. We appreciate their help, and we suggest you consider their products when you're shopping for new outdoor equipment.

 

 

 

 

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Orchard Update

 

Orchard in bloom. Photo courtesy Jay Styles.

Spring will soon be turning into Summer, and that means it’s time for an orchard update. The blossom season was spectacular this year. Our lone apricot tree was first to bloom, followed in quick succession by the plums, then pears, and finally the apples. Weather for the pear bloom was perfect, and now the trees are overloaded with young fruit. The week the apples were in peak bloom was rainy, and I was concerned the bees could not fly and pollinate the crop. 

Honeybee. Photo Jay Styles.

While a few of the apple trees are taking the year off to rest, the majority are doing fine, and there should be an abundant crop in the Fall.

Open house.

We scheduled an orchard open house and tour during the peak blossom time, and I believe everyone enjoyed hearing stories about the history of the orchard property and some of the characters who lived there in the past. We then took a walk through the orchard and talked about our future plans for enhancing it’s value as a resource for the Alberton community and beyond. The day after the open house, the Alberton graduating high school class came to have lunch at the orchard. It was a fun time, and something we hope to make an annual event.

Senior luncheon.

I’ve finally completed an inventory of all the fruit trees on our property. Most of the trees are in the orchard proper, but we have a few trees that exist outside the orchard, including three apples and one crabapple that are “wild” or volunteer trees that started on their own, probably due to animals spreading the seeds. In all, we have 76 fruit trees. The majority of the trees were planted in about 1982. There are trees that were planted later than that, and some trees that were planted just this year. Here is how they break out by type.

Apples – 52

Pears – 11

Plums – 7

Crabapples – 4

Apricots – 1

Sweet cherries – 1

A clear goal is to plant more apricots and cherries! We’re often asked what varieties of apples we have, and the answer is, mostly we don’t know. That’s because records were not kept when the orchard was planted back in the 1980s. We can identify a few of the apples, pears, and plums, and of course we know the new ones we’ve recently planted. We hope to consult with fruit experts to identify some of the others.

Apple to crabapple graft.

Operating an orchard is a lot of work, and there is quite a bit of technical knowledge involved. One technique that can be quite useful is grafting. Grafting basically involves taking a twig, or scion, from one tree, and making it grow onto the stem or branch of another tree, called the rootstock. Anytime you buy a fruit tree at a store or nursery, you can be sure it has been grafted. This allows combining the best fruit growing limbs from one tree with the hardiest and most disease resistant roots from another tree. My first attempt at grafting in 2020 

Plum to plum graft.

was a complete failure. So, I studied harder and figured out some things to do differently this year. I’m happy to say that of four attempts to graft regular apples onto crabapple trees with the whip and tongue method, all four have succeeded. Of eight attempts to graft plum scions onto different plum trees using the bark grafting method, five have succeeded and I haven’t given up on the other three quite yet. Learning new things and trying neat stuff like grafting is one of the joys of working in an orchard.

If you’d like to learn more about fruit trees, or just get out for some exercise in the fresh air, we’re always looking for volunteers at Brovold Orchard. Stop by sometime and we can talk about how you can get involved.

 

Springtime at the Orchard

 After a long winter and a year that has been so difficult for many people, Springtime is finally knocking on the door at Brovold Orchard. Spring is a time of hope and new life. May this year bring hope and peace to all.

 

A Beginning

Hello! Welcome to our new website and the first blog post from Brovold Orchard. As owners of the orchard for the past year, we’re excited about all the things that have been happening and all the things that are planned. If you’ve driven past the orchard, you may have noticed the activity. The orchard was pruned last year for the first time in several years, and we’ve just finished up pruning in 2021. This year we even held an adult education class in cooperation with Alberton School District on “How to Properly Prune Your Apple Tree.”  We hope to have many more informative and interesting classes in the future.

The fruit crop in 2020 was moderate, but we were pleased to share the fruit with many people in the community who came to pick. Providing free fruit to our neighbors in Alberton is a longstanding tradition at Brovold Orchard, and one we plan to continue. The harvest season culminated in a Fall Family Fun cider pressing day for school children, their parents, and teachers in early October. This used to be an annual event at the orchard, and we are pleased to revive it in cooperation with Alberton School District and the PEAK Foundation.

Much of last summer’s activities at the orchard went towards maintenance to bring the orchard back to good operating condition. Things like mowing, weedeating, maintaining the drip irrigation system, and planting new replacement trees were everyday events. We held a yard sale to help dispose of usable items from the old vacant residence on the property. Then, after disposing of over 11,000 pounds of trash from within and around that residence, we’ve begun to tear the building down. That project will be completed this Spring and the area will be attractively landscaped.

We repaired and painted a couple of the outbuildings on the property last summer. On the hillside above the orchard, we used our new-to-us backhoe to level an area where we hope to erect a new metal equipment storage building later in the year.

As important as the hard physical work at the orchard has been, there have been things happening behind the scenes that are just as important. Last fall we established a five-person Brovold Orchard Advisory Council composed of representatives from various segments of the community. This group will help us make decisions and implement management actions that will ensure the orchard is providing a diverse range of opportunities to the area’s people. These opportunities will include not only fruit from the orchard, but youth and adult education, volunteer opportunities, day-use recreation, and a place for community and private events. The Advisory Council is currently exploring the possibility of making Brovold Orchard a nonprofit organization so that we may receive tax exempt grants and donations to make all these opportunities come to life for our community.

We hope you’ll join us in the adventure of making Brovold Orchard a multi-faceted community resource. Please follow us on our Facebook page, and email us any time you have questions or ideas for us to consider. If you have spare time and would like to help with the orchard’s progress, we’d love to talk with you about volunteer opportunities.

Best regards from Bob and Jeanne Summerfield at Brovold Orchard.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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