Wish OP was closer to me! I can’t find a good PYO orchard closer than about a 45 minutes drive!
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Have you been to linvilla? They’re on the west side of Philly and they were selling peaches, pick your own, at like 2 dollars a pound or so
Thanks for that suggestion! Linvilla morphed into a “destination” a few years ago, so I’ve looked elsewhere. Several other local spots have closed, as families aged and developers closed in. I understand the pressures, but feel the losses.
One gem is Weaver’s in Morgantown. It is well worth the trip in season! They have a great selection of varieties and have a nice operation.
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You are 100% right. Every segment wants to live good, that’s why prices are as they are.
It’s so obvious that prices skyrocketed in every department, in every segment, but I feel so annoyed when people who grow fruit are so ignorant - “oooh, if we up prices by 15% no one will buy” crap. This attitude is called “don’t be a menace to true fruit growers”, where they spend their precious time and money to provide douche bags like him (the guy saying no one will buy, because he is not earning for living from it) it’s just his opinion.
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Biggest fruit slinger at Shingletown, CA farmer’s market charges $4.50 a # for all fruits.
Those prospective clients have no respect for country living and wouldnt appreciate the fruit. Or…they’re envious. I would rather give some away than sell it to such folks.
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Pricing really is a conundrum these days. Where I am most people have had trouble adjusting mentally. Probably because wages, while rising sharply, didn’t rise that much. Also folks tend to feel they earned their wage increase rather than seeing it as a sign of a falling dollar. Others are retirees so they’re comparing prices to wages 10-20 years ago.
I’ve really struggled with pricing in my home improvement business. Costs have risen so much the price customers expect to pay is often less than my break even…before I pay myself anything for labor.
Only thing you can do is set prices to make a profit and the customer either adjusts or moves on. It’s not worth it to do business at a loss. Better to let that customer go to someone else. Inflation is almost always permanent. It’s not like you can wait it out. It’ll just be more painful when you have to raise your price to account for multiple years of inflation later.
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My suggestion, if you want to continue in apples/pear, is High density. It’s expensive to start, but SO SO SO much easier to manage (Pruning, Spraying, Harvesting, Managing fertilizer and Herbicides). I’ve been intensely studying this for the past 2 months and BOY do I wish I had started this 13 years ago when I bought our property.
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What kind of spacing are you talking?? I have about 1/5 of an acre here. But my parent new property is closer to 1/3 and then my retirment looks to be on a 1.1 acre double lot. So I’m putting in first trees there last couple years. A couple apples and an apricot is it so far.
Agreed! Living and farming in Washington State I have watched the transformation of orcharding from standard trees to… well lets just say anything else is an improvement. The Washington apple powers jumped into it big time and companies and publications became famous by focusing on hi density ( like The Good Fruit Grower ). The whole process of hi density just went berserk in a very short while with mottos flying like “get big or get out” which applied to higher and higher density.
But a lot could be learned if one payed attention to the European models, who are always way ahead of us of course.
One of the most important things to think about before you start a hi density planting is to ask yourself what is the plan for 10 years, 15 years, 20 years, etc. I can tell you with all honesty that this was NEVER discussed in any planning during the early years of hi density in Washington State. Its always about how can we maximize yields in the first 2 - 3 years.
So the elephant in the room is what are you going to do with that overcrowded row of trees once they have filled their space?
There are actually good options its just that you should have a plan before you plant. Most of the early hi density orchards in eastern Washington were just ripped out when they became a management nightmare. Of course them being trellised thats not so easy a task, especially the V trellis.
For a more sustainable approach to hi density and trellising I would suggest to plan the orchard for a vertical trellis and whatever in row spacing you decide on, plan on removing trees, like starting with every other one, as the main branches start crossing.
Depending on several factors like variety vigor, rootstock, soil, irrigation or not, etc you may need to remove trees again as time goes by.
There are huge advantages to trellised trees, as said by Shale_Creek. The more time one spends with it, the more possibilities open up. I started my orchard this way but I learned that this was what I wanted after several years of putting in my time with more conventional thinking at a research farm.
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People tend to think they’re being poisoned by farmers (Which is ridiculous). When I plant a garden I make my own starts, usually double what I need, and plant the best of the best. A whole package of cabbage seed might be $1.75 these days plus $1 for a tray of cells that holds 12-24.
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Here I don’t agree with you. We are being poisoned by farmers, our bodies were never meant to eat all these chemicals. Agriculture has been done for millennia without them. The large seed companies and herbicide companies have us all under their weight.
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