The 2024 plum harvest is now over. The 2024 apple harvest has begun. We have good crops of Empire, Kerr and Liberty available now with more varieties expected in the coming weeks. Come see us at one of the farmers markets we attend or visit our farm stand on Thursday’s from 3-7pm. we expect to begin harvestin grapes next week.

We thought it would be interesting to take the road less traveled with our orchard. And so began our quest for heirloom fruit, apples, grapes, pears and plums. We scoured the country looking for just the right varieties. These heirloom varieties were the favorites of our ancestors, revered for their unique and rich flavors as well as for their ability to naturally withstand pests and disease. Back then heirlooms were rejected for what seemed like solid reasoning at the time: They ripened at intervals, making supply unpredictable, grew to odd sizes that did not fit processing equipment, and were too tender to transport. The hybrids that supplanted the heirlooms were more suited to large-scale production and shipping, but often at the expense of flavor and nutrition. At Indian Creek Orchard Gardens, we sell tree ripened fruit the day it is harvested, and we don’t ship our fruit. So heirloom fruit make all kinds of sense for us and for you. Taste the difference.

To assist our heirloom fruit orchard in withstanding insect and disease pressures, we have taken a different tack at Indian Creek Orchard Gardens.

To create as diverse an ecosystem as possible we have adopted a polyculture agroforestry approach to the orchard layout. Our orchard rows are intercropped with vegetables, berrys, grape vines and swaths of wild pasture. Within the rows we have mixed different varieties of apple, pear, plum and hazel trees. This makes our orchard more resilient to the onset of pest or disease due to the natural partitions that result from this layout. An apple disease or pest will have traverse 3 or 4 trees or cross several vegetable beds, before it finds another apple tree to infect.