News

One of our subscribers asked "When you are planting younger trees, how do you keep the deer from eating them?" Deer damage is one of the largest challenges with getting new fruit trees started. Deer love apples, and they eat their share in the summer and fall, but the real problem is the buds they eat over the winter. One deer can eat thousands of apple buds a day. Inside every apple bud are all the leaves and apples for this coming season. Every bud they eat contains dozens of valuable photosynthetic leaves and up to 5 apples. Therefore fruit...

The Masonic Village orchard has been a proud steward of the land for 100 years. We practice Integrated Pest Management (IPM) on our farm in order to preserve sustainable agriculture for our generation and generations to come. There are currently over 400 insects, 200 fungi, bacteria, molds, rots, rodents, and mammals that either damage fruits and vegetables or the plants they grow on. In order to grow healthful, affordable, eye-appealing produce we combine biological, cultural and conservation practices with modern technology to control these pests. We strive to reduce chemical pesticide usage in order to produce safe, environmentally friendly food...

Below are our apple and peach harvest dates for 2015. To use the chart, just find your favorite fruit variety, see what date we'll have it in stock, then stop in for the freshest product around!   

Farmer Tad often gets asked "What's the difference between all of these fruits in a jar? What works well on toast? What would I like best?" Jelly: Jelly is made with strained fruit juice. There are no pieces of fruit in jelly. Jam: Jam is made with mashed fruit. Preserves: Preserves have whole fruit or large pieces of fruit. Some fruits such as blackberries or raspberries will not stay whole during the processing so there may not be much difference between raspberry jam and raspberry preserve. Fruit spreads (only fruit): These are 100% fruit with no sugar added. If needed, a sweet fruit...