"Reality is no longer a
liberal concept but is the exclusive domain of the radical
fringe."
We
are the Gougeon family. Our orchard is just a few acres,
the site of an old orchard going back more then 100 years.
About half of the existing orchard was planted on the land
of Melinda and Richard Gougeon about 25 years ago by a
local apple grower. The orchard eventually fell out of use,
not being large enough on its own to be viable on a
traditional commercial scale, and too large for Lindy and
Rich (without growing experience) to deal with as a "home"
orchard. In 2005 Lindy and Rich's son Steve, his wife Jen
Williams and their sons Aidan and Elliot, bought Rich and
Lindy's house and put a second family addition on it,
putting three generations on the property.
Already growing a lot of
our own food, and interested in small scale sustainable
growing, we started into the world of growing "organic"
apples. Since then, with a lot of reading, seminars, apple
grower meetings, conversations with other growers, pruning,
thinning, bug identification, spraying, pruning and more
thinning, we are now starting to get good crops of apples
from the orchard once again, and are able to offer them for
sale.
At this point the future of the orchard looks good. We have
taken out many diseased and damaged trees. We have added,
and are adding, more new trees to balance out the the types
of apples we will have during the season.
For 2009 we have set up a nursery bed and are grafting
cuttings from existing trees onto new rootstock so that we
can replace gaps (from dead trees) in rows with the same
variety. We are also adding more new varieties (Wealthy,
Esopus Spitzenburg, Golden Russet, Williams Pride, Baldwin,
Cox Orange Pippin, Fameuse, Frostbite...).
At this point the orchard is too small to provide our
entire income, so we do have off-farm jobs as well. Steve
is a carpenter specializing in cabinetry and furniture
under the guise of Apple Valley
Woodworking. Jen is an adjunct
faculty member at Greenfield Community College teaching
biology, zoology, and ecology.
Please check out our How we grow
section.
Elliot, Jen, Aidan, and Steve.
