BC THE ORGANIC WAY by Marya Skrypiczajko

Wandering through an orchard is a pleasure at any time of the year, especially from mid-summer to late-fall when ripe peaches or pears can be plucked right from the trees. If the orchard happens to be run by a curious organic farmer, the visit gets more interesting. Many organic orchardists grow a much wider variety of fruit than conventional farmers, and a tour of one of these orchards with the farmer can be a gastronomic, eye-opening adventure.
Most conventional orchardists run sizable orchards and sell their fruit to packing houses that buy only large quantities of a few varieties of fruits. For example, with apples, Canadian packing houses generally buy Red Delicious, Golden Delicious, Spartan, and McIntosh, along with a couple of other varieties; they have no interest in small quantities of Winter Bananas, Early Coopers, or Rome Beauties for anything other than juice, and they would only buy these particular apples at a low cost. With this model in place, for many farmers, it isn’t worthwhile to grow such unusual varieties.
A greater number of organic farmers market directly to their consumers than non-organic farmers, and thus are not bound to produce only the standard varieties. Direct-selling at farms, farmers’ markets, specialty produce stores, and at the back doors of progressive restaurants, enables organic fruit farmers to encourage people to try something a little more unusual. Tim Holmlund of Sweet Pit Farm in Naramata notes, “During apricot season when I sell eight to 10 uncommon varieties of apricots at farmers’ markets – some, tiny little ovals, and some, dotted with red spots – I have no problem selling to new customers. I have noticed that when people buy directly from the farmer, they have a greater faith in the product and are more apt to be adventurous with unusually-coloured or flavoured varieties, as well as less concerned about the eye-appeal of the fruit.”
In fact, the less common varieties garner more money at farmers’ markets and restaurants than the traditional types, and people have opportunities to try fruit they have never or seldom tasted, giving the fruit an exotic appeal and a higher value.
Choosing amongst dozens of varieties of each specific fruit, these farmers do not have to sacrifice nutritional and
gastronomic variety and value. They are not limited by conventional boundaries and are free to grow and sell new varieties that have not been widely marketed, or that spoil too quickly for distant transport, or have an unorthodox appearance.
Farmers who grow a wide variety of the same fruit as well as different types of fruit have an additional market advantage in being able to offer the public freshly picked fruit throughout a long growing season. Different varieties of the same fruit can blossom and ripen at different times, extending the harvest season and spreading the workload over a longer period of time than just a couple of crunch weeks during the peak of the harvest.
Aspects of organic orcharding mirror organic grain and vegetable farming; the farmer nurtures a healthy soil, avoids the application of synthetic fertilizers and chemical pesticides in favour of hand labour and natural methods, and thereby invites biodiversity into the orchard.
Having to depend on manual labour and adhering to nature’s cycles makes organic orcharding demanding work, but farms with a wide variety of fruits have a smaller risk of devastation from a particular disease, or a particular pest, than monoculture farms. Different varieties are susceptible to different fungal diseases and pest infestations.
Another advantage to growing a wide variety of fruit is that natural cross-pollination is more likely to occur. Certain fruit trees, such as apples, pears, and plums require a minimum of two varieties growing within a small radius for cross-pollination to happen, as the trees do not self-pollinate. In many orchards, every tenth tree is a pollinator. For example, every tenth tree in an apple orchard may be a crabapple functioning solely as a pollinator. In an orchard planted with many varieties of apple trees, the apple trees themselves can act as pollinators.
Marrying the value of working in harmony with nature with the gastronomic pleasures and diverse nutrient contents of different varieties of cherries, apples, or plums makes this approach to orcharding not only more fun, but a more sensible model for the health of our planet.
Marya Skrypiczajko is the author of BC the Organic Way – Where to Find Organic Food in British Columbia.
www.bctheorganicway.com





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