Streuobstwiese
Meadow Orchard
In days gone by apples were grown on full sized trees with plenty of room between them for sunlight and breezes to reach the fruit. Pollenators and beneficial insects balanced pests and fruit was less than perfect due to natural growing conditions. In Switzerland Germany and Austria these meadow orchards were called Streuobstwiese. Ten or fifteen trees of differing variety and ages might grow in each acre of ground. The surrounding meadow grass was cut for hay or grazed by free range livestock.
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This is the way most fruit was grown in Northern Switzerland a century ago. Besides the natural balance and chemical free production, the Steuobstwiese or meadow orchard provided a beautiful natural landscape enjoyed every season of the year.
With the coming of the Industrial Age the methods of growing fruit changed to a more industrialized production model. Trees were crowded together and their size reduced by dwarfing rootstocks. Hundreds of trees were planted per acre. Chemicals became necessary to combat pests and diseases in the crowded trees.
Today fruit production takes place on trees that grow no more than eight feet tall. Thousands of trees grow in each acre and harvesting is done by machines. Apples may be sprayed more than ten times a season to compensate for the conditions in which the fruit grows and to produce the tough skinned and hard fleshed apples shipped around the world to chain grocery stores. The largest apple producer in the world today is China.
We reclaimed the centuries old practice of Streuobstwiese fruit growing to take full advantage of our unique terroir, soil and climate. We use minimal sprays and a lot of labor to harvest fruit from large sized apple trees. This produces the finest flavored apples. You won't find apples like ours in any grocery store. Antique varieties with quaint sounding names like Sops of Wine, Granniwinkle and Limbertwig grow along with vintage favorites like Baldwin, Winesap, Snow and the Jonadel apple developed years ago at Iowa State University.
A large part of the orchard is red fleshed apples like Niedzwetzkyana, Burford, Redfield, Otterson, and Hansen's Red Flesh. We recently planted a new variety developed in Switzerland called Red Love, a modern red fleshed apple. We grow cider apples for like Ashmeade, Roxbury Russet and Dabinette. Colonial apples like Harrison ans Hewe's Virginia, a favorite of Thomas Jefferson, grow here. Modern disease resistant apples grow on large trees, Liberty, Freedom, Enterprise, Williams Pride and Pristine. There is something here for everyone!
At harvest time we sort the best apples for customers looking for apple flavor that can't be found in the store. Our apples are not perfect. Perfect apples are created with chemicals. Our apples will be fresh, not from a storage warehouse. They will be available when nature ripens them and the trees decide they should be given. One word of caution! Once you taste apples from our meadow orchard you might not want to settle for grocery store apples again.
We grow an apple found no where else. A wild apple tree was found growing in a fenceline near our farm. It had large yellow/green apples blushed with red. They were growing with no protection from pests, disease or farm chemicals applied to the fields. We tested the apples and they were excellent for Apfel Wein, holding their apple flavor through the process. We grafted trees and named it the Whitetail Valley Pippin.
Over 70 varieties of apples, along with pears, peaches, and cherries grow at the farm. Each one is unique. Come out and find your favorite!