Open Farm Day Monty Python's Apple Orchard

Richard Hennigar is absolutely passionate about organic sustainable orchards. His orchards produce the kid's favorite treat - Suprima (Shivers) popsicles. His other passion is Trancendental Meditation (http://www.tm.org) We visited his orchard and learned all about his farming practices. They're very different than the big commercial orchards that spray that surround Wolfville!

A big part of orchard management is taking the time to study what is going on in your orchard and the surrounding environment. Richard has these flypapers sprinkled through the orchard. They allow him to keep track of a single fly called the "Apple Maggot Fly" They have black zigzags on their wings. This one had caught one fly. We learned about the fly's life cycle and how they can devastate an orchard without proper management. Management here does not mean spraying. So Richard has worked very hard to get rid of neglected abandoned apple trees and hawthorne trees within a kilometre of his orchard. The province used to help out by giving apple tree owners an ultimatum - pick up your fallen apples, spray your trees, cut down your trees, or they'll cut them down for you. They don't anymore though. So Richard and other organic growers take it upon themselves to find and weed out the problem trees.

Because Richard doesn't mow his orchards (more on this!) he has HUGE anthills in the orchard. Ants are more important than worms to soil health, they aerate dry soils earthworms can't touch and they mine minerals to bring to the surface - like sulphur.

This video explains how Richard manages the grass in his orchard without any fossil fuels. It takes12 hours to flatten an acre, but it only needs to be done once a season and the grasses enrich the soil as a natural mulch.

Here are the kids helping Richard flatten his grasses. I can see why he doesn't hire children to roll out the grass, but they sure had fun!

We learned that the fallen apples get sold to big juice producers. The waste left over from pressing cider gets sold to an organic pig producer nearby. Nothing goes to waste in the orchard.

We got to try all sorts of apples and ended our visit with popsicles!