Apple producers call this year’s harvest a ‘welcome change’

The leaves on the trees may not have started turning colors just yet, but the size and colors of the apples grown in Nelson County are an indication that summer is ending and fall is right around the corner.

This year’s apple harvest is in full swing now in the county and one of Nelson’s newest orchards, Heaven and Earth Acres in Nellysford, is producing the biggest crop it has ever had, owner Tom Weber said.

“Obviously, the orchard being a little more mature helps,” Weber said. “And the fact that we had good moisture early in the season helped with the apples’ development.”

Weber and his wife, Anita, grow more than 20 varieties of heritage apples on an orchard that consists of 140 trees spread out over one and a half acres. They started the orchard in 2000 and began picking apples in 2007.

“It’s small, but for one person, (the orchard) and the garden keeps me busy,” Tom Weber said.

When the Webers are away, they employ their only picker, their son Tim, to come in and help out.

“They’ve been keeping me busy,” Tim Weber said, while harvesting Fireside apples, a large, pale green heirloom variety fruit, last week.

Like many of the orchards in Nelson, the Webers began picking apples in late July and early August and will continue to have apples until November. They sell their apples at the Nellysford Farmers Market.

John Bruguiere, orchard manager at Dickie Brothers Orchard in Massies Mill, said their crop of apples from the 100-acre orchard looks “like a great year as long as we don’t get a hailstorm or a hurricane.”

“Compared to last year, we’ve have more early rain,” Bruguiere said. “In the spring of the year, we had more rain. That’s basically one of the big contributing factors of the quality of the fruit and the size of the fruit.”

Dickie Brothers Orchard allows customers to pick their own apples all week long during the fall and Bruguiere said the most popular type of apple is the Fuji.

“It’s very sweet,” he said. “It’s very hard and it keeps a very long time in your refrigerator.”

Bennett Saunders, orchard manager at Saunders Brothers Orchard in Piney River, also said good weather has contributed to a great crop of apples this year.

“We’ve have some seasonal rains all summer” Saunders said. “Enough but not too much all summer long. We’ve been dealing with droughts for so many years before that, we don’t really know how to act in a normal year.

“But it’s a welcome change.”

Donna Fitzgerald, one of the owners of Fitzgerald’s Orchard in Tyro, said their crop of apples from the 300 acres of orchards is “full and the quality is good.”

Fitzgerald’s began picking apples in July and will continue to have apples until March or April of next year after storing most of the crop.

Anne Kidd, the office manager for Flippin-Seaman Inc. in Tyro, said their apple crop of more than 500 acres from Silver Creek Orchard and Seaman Orchard “looks good.”

Kidd said the orchards will hold two apple butter festivals this year, on Oct. 3 and on Oct. 17, and that each of the orchards allow customers to pick their own apples.