Unique Fruits, Nuts, & Marketing of a Diversified Organic Nursery
There couldn’t have been a more appropriate way to usher in the first official day of autumn than with a farm walk at Burnt Ridge Nursery & Orchards in Onalaska. With a beautiful view of Mount St. Helens, Michael and Carolyn Dolan amazed thirty farmers, orchardists, and community members with their knowledge of all the unique fruit and nut species they grow organically. On a little over 20 acres, Burnt Ridge produces a wide variety of nursery stock, fresh fruit, and value-added products – with a majority of their sales coming from a successful mail-order business. Three hours was simply not enough time to absorb all the amazing knowledge held by over 25 years of growing and marketing experience.
Michael purchased the 21 acres in 1980 as logged over forest land. He removed all the stumps left from its logging history (a long process) and began planting his fruit and nut orchards. The soil of the land is a silty volcanic soil and the slight slope of the land received less hard frosts – an advantage for spring blossoming plants. While Michael works the most with the plants and experimenting with new varieties, Carolyn manages mail-order and online sales. Each year they put out a nursery catalog that gets mailed to 50,000 people! Their mail-order sales account for 85% of nursery stock sales. Michael and Carolyn manage ten employees that help with fulfilling orders and managing the production of the orchards. During peak season they ship between 80 and 100 tree orders a day. Carolyn advised that for any type of online or mail-order sales it is a good idea to invest in high-quality computer software to track sales and shipments.
A major focus of the farm walk was two of Burnt Ridge’s most unique and most popular crops – chestnut and hardy kiwi. Michael went into great detail about the different species he grows, their characteristics, and their adaptability within Western Washington. He mostly sells the chestnuts for eating. Michael also sells 5000 grafted chestnut trees per year – that’s a lot of grafts! He shared that chestnuts have a delayed grafting incompatibility so he advised using the same species for the seedling rootstock as for the scion wood.
Both the fuzzy and hardy kiwi varieties will keep long term in cold storage. Michael also shared that they are easy to grow organically as they have no pest or disease pressure to speak of.
Michael performs most of the nursery grafting himself from March through July. He’ll harvest one year old scion wood from trees around the orchard in the fall/winter and keep it in cold storage until he is ready to graft. Grafted plants are kept outside in decomposed alder sawdust through the summer, then dug in the fall and kept in cold storage as bare roots to be sold through the following spring. He doesn’t sell much of his nursery stock as potted plants mostly because of the cost involved between pots and irrigation, as well as the amount of space required to keep potted plants.
Other plant species Michael spoke in depth about were hazelnut, Korean nut pine, elderberry, mulberry, Asian pear, various apple varieties, walnut, grape, pecan, peach, serviceberry, goumi, persimmon, paw-paw, cherry, Chilean nut, and autumn olive. All these different fruits and nuts are grown at Burnt Ridge for their fresh product (some of which is used in value-added processing) and/or for nursery stock.
Attendees were able to taste some of the unique varieties of fruit grown at Burnt Ridge. They also sampled some of the jam Burnt Ridge produces in their commercial kitchen including kiwi, mulberry, and red currant. Burnt Ridge produce and value-added products can be found at the Olympia Farmer’s Market and Olympia Food Co-op.
Burnt Ridge Nursery Farm Walk Booklet
Funding for this farm walk is funded in part by the WSDA Specialty Crop Block Grant Program and by the Beginning Farmer and Rancher Development Program of the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, USDA, Grant # 2012-49400-19575. For more resources and programs for beginning farmers and ranchers please visit www.Start2Farm.gov.
Talking more specifically about their orchard, Bear shared that they essentially prune year round. Their soil – a glacial till – was not particularly fertile, which can be advantageous in producing flavorful cider fruit. Bear does supplement the soil with peat from Chimacum Valley, a 3-2-3 organic fertilizer, and chelated lime, to keep the pH between 6.5-7 – which Gary said is an ideal pH range for orchard soils. Bear completes soil tests often and keeps orchard grass in the alleyways. Alpenfire has an irrigation system that delivers about a gallon of water a day per tree to achieve good fruit set. Related to fruit set, Bear and Nancy are keen on ensuring that their apple blossoms have the best possible chance of being pollinated. They keep mason bee houses throughout the orchard to promote pollination by the bees. They have also begun an education program with a local school that invites out grade school children to be hand pollinators. Bear gives them cups of pollen (sourced from Antles Pollen Supplies) and q-tips to walk around the orchard and pollinate flowers. This year, Bear judged the children to be successful bee impersonators and had excellent fruit set.
Eight miles south of Clinton, WA on Whidbey Island, 17 farm walk attendees were present for a farm walk at Glendale Shepherd, a Grade A sheep dairy. Attendees included farmers, community members, and various resource people including Karen Bishop (Whidbey Island Conservation District) Sarah Bergquist (Island County 4H Coordinator), and Joan Devries (Skagit County Livestock Advisor). Lynn and Stan Swanson along with their son, Erik, and four interns led the walk.
Stan then walked us through the forested area of their property to show us the saw mill, a historical aspect of the Swanson farm that is still in use as they manage the forest resources of their property. Stan uses much of the timber he and his brother mill in constructing many of the buildings and animal enclosures on the farm and the ingenious feeder trucks for the sheep. These moveable feeders – which Stan calls the “taco trucks” because the sides flip up to reveal the feed troughs, much like a food truck flips up to sell tacos – are moved with the lambs as they are moved from pasture to pasture. We got to see one of these “taco trucks” in action in the lamb pasture where Stan fed the lambs some grain and hay (which quickly subsided their incessant bleating). The lambs are processed for meat through the Puget Sound Meat Producers Cooperative and Minder Meat, both of which are USDA approved facilities and are amenable to being inspected for Glendale’s Animal Welfare Approved certification.
After visiting the lamb pasture, the group walked to the dairy barn where Erik explained the process of milking the 51 ewes. They milk the sheep twice a day: in the morning from 7am to about 10am, and then again at around 5pm to about 7pm. The basic process is to herd the sheep into a pen outside the barn, bring in four at a time onto a galvanized stanchion, feed the ewes, sanitize them, and then place the milkers on them. They get approximately 100 gallons of milk per week, which comes out to about 2 gallons a week per sheep. The milk is pumped into stainless steel containers which are sanitized and chilled, then transported to the cheese-making room which is in a building located apart from the dairy barn and pastures.
After seeing the sheep and pastures we walked to the building that houses the cheese-making and cheese-aging rooms. For reasons of sanitation we were not able to go into these rooms but Lynn provided pictures that displayed the set-up quite well. The cheese making room has a 55 gallon pasteurizer, which they were able to purchase through a Farm Service Agency (FSA) loan, and a 35 gallon holding tank specifically for raw milk. When the milk is brought up from the dairy barn, the milk cans are first bleached and then passed through a pass-through window that connects directly into the cheese room. This is a measure to protect against any cross-contamination. Lynn then handles the making of the cheese and yogurt in the cheese room, and then cheese/yogurt is moved to the aging room. From the aging room the products are moved to a room for packaging and storage. The uni-directional flow of the cheese making process controls for contamination. Glendale Shepherd produces a variety of hard, aged cheeses, yogurt, and recently lebneh a soft yogurt based cheese.
Patty McManus-Huber, co-owner of Nash’s Organic Produce, welcomed us at the community barn adjacent to Nash’s Farm Store. Registration was busy, given there were more than 70 attendees, and excitement was high to hear from owner Nash Huber and his team about their successes growing, processing and marketing grains and seeds.
Carpools headed to the Delta Farm where our education began by learning farming in the Sequim-Dungeness Valley is farming in the far western part of Washington. It’s fairly remote, with the nearest farm supply store is in Burlington. Consequently, ingenuity and resourcefulness are critical components for success on a farm. As Nash and several on his crew mentioned throughout the day, everything is homemade, re-done, re-worked or recycled from other things, both from items found on the farm or nearby. Sam McCullough, who led the grain production tour in the barn at the Delta Farm noted that having to always create what you need “keeps you strong”. The grain bin dumper was one such example Sam shared. Made to replace their original five-gallon bucket system, it came to life from two key components found elsewhere on the farm: one gear and a hydraulic arm. The ton size grain bucket was also conceived from various pieces and built to meet the farm’s growing grain needs.
Discussion turned to the seed cleaners and the various types of machines and screens employed. Seed cleaners are used first, with air used to push up and float material from one level to the next. An air screen is the first pass almost all the time. Seeds need to be an appropriate moisture level before putting them in the air cleaner to avoid using unnecessary energy to dry seed chaff. Then the seeds are spun in a bucket spinner, which uses friction to remove the fine hairs. Care must be taken not to burn the seeds during this process. For grain sizing, indent drums are used next. It’s best to size after cleaning the seeds as the drums won’t work well if full of dust. Sizing is important because growers need to have the appropriate size seed for their planters.
Later the conversation turned to planting. Nash’s employs a “finger tiner” after the root has set a good anchor. Nash said that “when finger tining you need to hit it hard”, which can be scary because you might accidentally chew up a field. He did mention that since they grow their own seed they can plant thick, which makes this step more challenging. However, because of the thick plant set they yield 150# to 175# per acre for most grains. The audience learned that soil preparation for grain production is different than for vegetables. In seed fields, after harvest winter crops are planted heavily and then ripped to allow water to get in and create ridges for the cover crops to thrive. Nash’s team discs in the cover crop when it reaches boot height; if taller, they first mow.
What Rob and Diane Stockhouse have created in this beautiful slice of Puget Island is most certainly a farm, and it is also unquestionably an economic engine for agriculture in the region and a gathering place. Carrie Backman, Director of WSU Wahkiakum County Extension, told the group of 15 assembled for the farm walk at Stockhouse’s Farm that she sees the farm as a regional learning center. She attributes its success to the intentional community partnership fostered by Rob and Diane which has supported the area’s agricultural revival. They have been instrumental in promoting WSU’s Cultivating Success program and Master Gardner training while also encouraging agritourism with a farmers market and guest cottage on their property.
Rob showed us their spacious planting room, off the back of the barn. An impressive amount of varieties were being prepared for transplant in the farm’s hoop houses. Almost everything is grown inside the hoop houses, which protect the plants from the area’s wind and variable coastal climate in addition to providing warmer soil and air temperatures. The group was fascinated to hear Rob explain how the original greenhouses are repurposed carports with old, salvaged windows integrated as the sides. Each structure has a unique window type and it was discovered that those that slide open for ventilation are the most useful. Carport-sized hoop houses are small, and while all are still in use, eventually more space was needed so the Stockhouses procured a USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) grant last year and recently completed a full-size hoop house.
In addition to flower beds, outside fields are planted with onions, brassicas, winter squash and potatoes. This year the farm is experimenting with a new system for these plots, an idea which Diane confessed she “dreamed up” in the off-season. Rob has turned Diane’s dream into reality by making row covers from thick, black ground cloth that are carefully held in place along the 70’ x 100’ rows, and which can be rolled back and secured with staples alongside the planted rows as the crops develop. Rob and Diane hope that this system will allow the plants to thrive in their cool soil and not lose their ground cover to the island’s frequent, strong winds. For additional protection fruit trees have been planted along two sides of the field.
The need for flexibility was frequently mentioned during the afternoon. Diane told of how their business has adapted throughout the years, adjusting both to the interests of their customers as well as to the impact the work has on her and Rob. For instance, they grew pumpkins and offered hay rides in the past but found they were tied to the farm waiting for the few customers that came. Plant starts had been profitable but didn’t fit their schedule. They raised meat hens for awhile but would have needed to greatly scale up in order to make it pay off. A flock of heirloom turkeys was more trouble – and expense – than they were worth when they flew onto and damaged the hoop house roofs. Diane stressed that with just two of them to support they can try new things while a farmer with a larger family might not be able to be as flexible. It was clear that the Stockhouses have found the right balance between operational success and their own time commitment to the farm, while also fostering success for themselves and others within their community.