Stewart Orchard

Fruit Bonds now being offered! You know you want one!

2011-12-14T11:23:00.000-08:00

As many of you know or have caught wind of, we are EXPANDING! In the lovely Bells Bend area of Davidson County, we are planning an extensive Pick Your Own Orchard. Peach trees have already been ordered from the incomparable Cumberland Valley Nurseries in McMinnville. But in order to finance the numerous projects that must be done, we are now issuing FRUIT BONDS.

The bonds will be issued as follows:

For $30, you may select one item from the following list.
For $60, you may select two items from the following list.
For $100, you will receive all three items plus a special gift

And the items are:
Two quarts of blackberries
Five pounds of peaches
One peck of apples

The bearer of the bond will receive their selected items for FIVE YEARS from the issuance of the bond, which will begin in June of 2012. Crop losses will be taken into account, with the bond simply extending for one more year.

If you are interested in helping your local agriculture expand by purchasing a fruit bond, please contact us. You may mail a check and your selected item list (3305 Bell Street Ashland City, TN 37015). You may call anytime and we would be happy to speak with you (615-792-9829). We are even UPTOWN enough to take your credit card! Or you may email us: stewartorchard11@gmail.com

Thank you all so much for coming out to the market or making the drive to Ashland City. We appreciate all of you, your encouragement, and your support.

(Photograph by Jenny Mabry Photography. Call her! She's awesome!!)

Apologies....but some good news too.

2011-08-02T12:30:00.000-07:00

The top photo shows what a hail storm can do to a tender young nectarine.

This bottom photo is a surefire way to a happy mama.

The blackberries were a HUGE disappointment. Last year, we picked 10-12 gallons per day! This year, we picked maybe 4 gallons every other day. We are not sure what happened to cause this decline in berries, but we've talked to other berry growers who had the same issues. Seemingly healthy berries developed white druplets which rendered them inedible. Again, just a reminder that farmers are at the mercy of forces much bigger than themselves! If you missed the berries, please accept our apologies. Hopefully next year will be much better.

The peaches are coming in beautifully. Our White Nectars are gone, but we still have a few Contenders left and are waiting patiently for the Carolina Golds to ripen up. They will be worth the wait! Call us NOW and we'll go ahead and start a waiting list!!

We are only doing one market this year, which has been the West Nashville Market on Saturdays from 9am to 12 noon. It is located on Charlotte Pike at 46th Avenue at Richland Park and is truly an awesome market! The kids go with Tatum and have gotten good at their yoga, participating in the free classes offered. A four year old doing a sun salute is one of the funniest things you'll ever see! The lemonade is wonderful, the music is always good, and we've made some good friends.

Apple Update: Golden Delicious---looking really good
                          Rome---it's going to be another slim year with these guys
                          Arkansas Black---awesome! We're looking at multiple bushels per tree, and there are
                                                        50 of them!!

Thank you all for your constant encouragement and support. Please call if there is anything we can do for you.

Blackberry time and new email to share

2011-06-14T13:43:00.000-07:00

That's right! Blackberry time is here again! Yay! Time to head to Costco for bug spray and sunscreen! They are easily going to surpass their production from last year, which means we'll probably be showing up at more farmer's markets. Wednesdays will be the East Nashville market and Saturdays will be West Nashville and the downtown market. Of course, Grandma will be selling from the house, so come on by if you are in Ashland City.

Our new email address is as follows: stewartorchard11@gmail.com This address will be devoted to orchard business and communications. Our phone number has not changed, so if you would like to speak with us directly, please don't hesitate to call.

We hope to see you soon. Come back soon for updates on peaches! We're looking at mid-July.

So here's what's going on...

2011-03-02T08:55:00.000-08:00

1. Someone please tell this one to stop growing up so fast. It hurts his mama's heart.

2. No Hawaii. I so bossily told everybody to go look it up, and now we have none. The grafts just didn't take. Disappointing. We also lost all the Kinnard's Choice we attempted to graft. It's kind of like frying a chicken...do you cut it up yourself or spend the little bit of extra money and buy the chicken already cut up? Do you buy the trees already whip-size, or do you save money and try to graft your own? We are now officially declaring that we will not be trying grafting again anytime soon...

3. New varieties being shipped to us 4- 4- 11 from Adams County Nursery in Pennsylvania:

Liberty

Goldrush

Grimes Golden

Hardy Cumberland

These will be a nice mix of reds and goldens, and will hopefully fill in the gaps in our growing season. They will also physically fill in the gaps in the orchard...where the Red Delicious were taken out. That spot has become the burn pile and it will be so nice to see something growing there again.

4. Talks are currently underway to expand our operation. We tenatively plan to plant out in Bells Bend an extensive Pick-Your-Own operation that includes our beloved apples, peaches and blackberries. We have met with the landowners and they are very excited about having us there. Our ideas are becoming real, offers of help are pouring in, encouragement is all around. Somebody pinch me.

Final post of the season

2010-09-26T15:17:00.000-07:00

Yes, you read that right. This is the final post of the season. We expect to harvest MAYBE four bushels of the Arkansas Blacks and other than those, it is over! But I will provide a little explanation...

1. Remember the Red Delicious being bulldozed?

2. Rome Apples will never produce well two years in a row. Last year they were AWESOME! So that means that THIS is THAT year. And there is nothing any human being can do about it.

3. The Golden Delicious only produced about four bushels, which were already sold! We had a few culls and Grandma, she of the era of children raised by parents who survived the Great Depression, is canning apple pie filling. Oh my dear is it good!! Maybe you'll get lucky and get some for Christmas! But I may need to keep most of it for us...

4. Thinning is always tricky. Even seasoned orchardists admit that it is tricky. You always run the risk of it working just a little too well. Add to that our extreme rain events this spring and our Arkansas Blacks become an unfortunately fine example.

So, here we are. Thanks go out to everyone who supported us this season by coming out to the Farmer's Market and stopping by the house. We hope to see everyone again come June when it's blackberry time again.

2010-07-12T08:53:00.000-07:00

Swimmin' in Blackberries!!

What a busy last two weeks...we're exhausted! On any given day, picking 10 gallons of berries was the norm! The boy was promised that if he picked 50 quarts, we would buy him a PSP. For an 8 year old, that was encouragement enough to withstand the blazing sun, the multiple layers of bug spray and sunscreen, and having to wear his mom's hat!! We've all had fun, but we are going to see what we can do to open up the orchard for "Pick Your Own Blackberries" next year. Yikes! It was all we could do to keep up with it. Big thanks have to go out to Grandaddy and Aunt Nancy who gave up their time to help us.

Snow. Lots of snow.

2010-04-28T14:30:00.001-07:00

Juat wanted to share a pretty snow shot from late January. Dormancy is a strange thing. But amazing if you think about it.

Season by Season

2010-04-28T14:16:00.001-07:00

Late fall brought bittersweet days. I call them bittersweet because often in an orchard, some things have to die for others to live. You have to practice tough love! Our Red Delicious trees had developed several kinds of rot. This is bad because the rot can spread to neighboring healthy trees, which would be our Arkansas Blacks! Though seemingly bulletproof, they must still be protected. So we called on our friend Matthew, a fellow farmer and strawberry grower extrodinaire, who brought out his backhoe. Roughly 15 years of growth was reduced to roots and mud in under an hour.

The sweet part of this post is this...now there is room to grow more new trees!! More to follow later. But I have one word for you, HAWAII. Look it up.

2009-11-11T13:17:00.000-08:00

Autumn is gorgeous this year, and we enjoyed mostly bountiful crops. Is it possible to be only slightly bountiful?! Not buried neck deep, maybe just to the knee! As our growing season winds down, there is still so much to do. Don't let anyone kid you, orchardists work all year round! Pruning the apple trees and transplanting some of the blackberry plants will be our first orders of business. Trellising and irrigating of the blackberries will also have to be done before spring.

Thank you all so much for your business and your interest in our modest little orchard. Unfortunately, we will not be continuing this blog on Blogspot. We'll be moving to a new server due to some unwelcome content and virus issues on Blogspot. Please be assured that we will provide the new address once the new blog is established. We're shopping around on Typepad, so perhaps that is where we will land.

These new photos show the autumnal peach trees, and three members of our little family out enjoying these last warm fall days. May next fall find us once again praising God for His bounty and His mercy.

One Busy Summer

2009-10-18T20:42:00.000-07:00

Yes, we have been very busy this summer. But life is good!

We had blackberries in abundance for the whole month of June. Able to pick six gallons a day, we took turns picking, selling, and sorting. Truthfully, we are daunted by our plants and their production capabilities. Next summer, we will easily be picking double what we gathered this summer. Maybe we should consider becoming a "Pick-Your-Own" just for the blackberries. However, if anyone picks like me and two of my children, there will be many berries eaten and not many going into the bucket. My favorite berry story of this summer came about as a result of a "tour" I gave of our orchard to several of the extension agents for our county. One lady, in all seriousness, asked how I kept from picking the raspberries. Blackberries are red prior to ripening...

Our peach trees produced way beyond what we expected for this year. Quite a pleasant surprise! The peaches sold very well, with some people even wanting the culled fruit to use in preserves and jams. We were able to plant 60 more peach trees this summer. We lost only a handful due to our own error and continue to sing the praises of Cumberland Valley Nursery in McMinnville, Tennessee. They ship out the most beautiful baby trees. As the peach trees grow and produce, we are learning that we have much to learn about them. Persnickity...that is a good word to describe a peach tree. But when there are people wanting to come pick up the peaches off the ground and pay money for them, well, then you know you're on to something. And you will baby this tree, sing to it, pet it, dance around it, do whatever it wants because it will be your legacy!

We were also able to construct a cold storage room this summer. It is simply a marvel of engineering, though not exactly pretty! (Please see pictures to the left.) The insulated panels we bought off Craig's List from a man involved in the renovation of a school and the coolest (literally and figuratively) gadget we purchased is called a "CoolBot." Just using a simple window unit air conditioner, we attached the CoolBot, constructed an insulated room around it and VOILA! We have a walk-in cooler that maintains a constant temperature of 38 degrees. Cold storage is invaluable to an orchard. However, in the case of our Golden Delicious apples, they were not around long enough to need any storage! They were in high demand this season and with good reason. They were absolutely delicious! As of this writing, the Arkansas Black apples are ready to be picked. Again, these apples will probably never see the inside of our cold room. Several bushels have already been sold and many more have been promised. Please see pictures of this gorgeous apple in the left margin.

Future Plans

2009-03-25T10:45:00.000-07:00

Have you ever heard of a Golden Russet Apple? How about an Esopus Spitzenburg? Well, in the year 2011, you'll be able to sample these and other antique varieties right here at Stewart Orchard. Our niche has been decided! We want to be the orchard you come to when you are tired of the tired, tasteless, and mealy. You'll taste a home grown Golden Russet and never want anything else! So those few miles you have to drive out to Ashland City won't seem so far!

These are the antique varieties we will be growing on the slender spindle method. They will surely be at half production in 2011, with full production coming on in 2012.

Golden Russet, Esopus Spitzenburg, Kingston Black, Brown's Apple, Michelin, and Domaines

The last two varieties listed are going to be mainly used for cider production. Cider is another item that once you taste the real thing, all the rest will seem insipid. Granny Smiths are also going to be planted because so many people have asked for them. But we believe that again, what you pick off the tree yourself will be far superior to anything you can buy in a store.

A List of Varieties and Approximate Ripening Times

2009-03-24T21:17:00.000-07:00

What follows is a list of all varieties found in our orchard:

APPLES
Red Delicious -First week in September
Golden Delicious -same
Red Rome -First week in October, generally a month after Delicious varieties
Arkansas Black -Late apple, ripening around the last week in October to first week in November

PEACHES -all ripen in July (we're still figuring this out ourselves, so approximate dates are unknown! Call us and we'll figure this out together!)
Carolina Gold
Contender
White Nectar
Encore
Challenger
These last two were only planted last week. Look for peaches from them next year!

BLACKBERRIES -the month of June is devoted to blackberries...picking everyday!
Ouachita
Triple Crown

2009-03-24T20:50:00.000-07:00

Hello and Welcome!

If you have found us through http://www.picktnproducts.org/, we welcome you to the Stewart Orchard blog! "We" includes Tatum, Jobeth, and Amelia Stewart. As it says in our "About Me" we care for the largest orchard in Cheatham County, Tennessee. As of this writing, we are raising apples, blackberries and peaches.

Just a little history about our orchard...We bought this property in 2002, knowing nothing about apples and staring at 250 apple trees! At that point, the trees were between 10 and 15 years old, having been neglected for probably the last five. So we started reading, got cozy with our local extension office, and bought a tractor. Our first attempts at pruning were a disaster and who knew chemicals could be so expensive?! Seven years later, our orchard has become our passion! Due to the huge pressure put on our trees by insects and Tennessee's world famous cut-it-with-a-knife humidity, we cannot produce any fruit organically. We also don't feel that it is safe right now to operate as a Pick-Your-Own operation. As stated above, we are on a hillside and our trees are quite large. The last thing we need is someone falling out of a tree and THEN rolling down the hill!

We are happy to give you a tour, answer any of your questions, and share our love of apples with you. Please scout around on this blog for photos, phone numbers, and directions to our farm. We hope to see you soon!