September, 2022
First off, here’s the answer to reader Bill Burnn’s question. Back in comments to the “The town of Toppenish” blog post, Bill said a neighbor of his was raised in Toppenish, and that neighbor thinks he knows the woman in the American Hop Museum, but can’t remember her name. I can’t find her name online, but I looked back through my notes and see that I wrote her first name as Maribel, didn’t get her last name. So … Bill … check with that neighbor of yours and see if the name Maribel rings a bell. 🙂 (Sorry about the “bell” pun … ok, not so sorry.)
And now for THIS blog post, I’d like to share just a few photos taken of fruit orchards over the several days that I drove the main roads and the back roads, all around and through, all over the area here, mostly to the south and east of Yakima and Toppenish. Autumn is a wonderful time of the year to visit this area. It smells so good! I was focused on hops during this trip, so didn’t take many photos of apples and pears and such. Rest assured, the hills are covered with fruit! Even homes with just a small bit of acreage around them have many fruit trees, all in rows, all well tended. But there are also huge orchards.
Some fruit trees were growing right by the side of the road, not in a field or orchard or in anyone’s yard. I guess the pears (below) would be free for the pickin’.
Mostly, I saw apples …..
Look at the difference between traditional apple trees above … and a whole different way to grow the “tree” below.
It looked to me like this apple farm was copying how hop vines are grown. In this apple orchard, the trunk of each “tree” is in the dirt, then the branch? and the leaves and the apples grow up a string. I bet this way makes for much easier harvesting, more light to all parts of the plant, and easier access to the ground at the base of the plant for maintenance. In all my driving around the area this week, this “V” orchard was the only one I noticed.
Maybe the “V” method is more efficient, but I still like healthy old apple trees, full of juicy, ripe apples.
As mentioned, just driving by these orchards smelled divine. You can bet I rolled my windows down, enjoyed the warm September air, and took in that sweet, sweet smell of ripe apples and pears. I also bought some … yum! 🙂