06/22/2026
A Message from the Orchard
On the morning of April 20, our orchard was hit by a severe spring freeze during a critical stage of bloom and fruit development. Temperatures fell to damaging levels for several hours, resulting in one of the most significant freeze events our orchard has experienced in recent years.
We know many of you have been wondering how the crop fared and why we have not provided an update until now. The simple answer is that we didn’t know. Freeze damage is not always immediately apparent, and fruit trees can continue to shed damaged fruit for weeks after an event like this. We felt it was important to wait until we had a clearer picture of what survived before sharing information with our customers.
We were also hoping for a better outcome. As the weeks passed, we continued to find additional losses and watched fruit that initially appeared healthy fail to develop. While we knew early on that the freeze had caused damage, the full extent of the losses took time to become clear.
Based on what we are seeing today, we expect:
• Cherries: complete crop loss
• Peaches: approximately 10% of a normal crop
• Plums: approximately 10% of a normal crop
• Pears: approximately 20% of a normal crop
• Apples: approximately 65% of a normal crop
We are thankful to still have an apple crop, but many varieties will be in shorter supply than usual, and some fruits may be unavailable or available only briefly this season.
This is not the update we hoped to share. Like every grower, we invest a tremendous amount of time, work, and optimism into each crop long before the first fruit is harvested. Seeing so much of it lost to a single night of weather is difficult. Even so, farming has always required resilience, and our focus now is on caring for the crop that remains and making the most of this season.
We are deeply grateful for the support our customers have shown our family and our orchard over the years. Your encouragement and loyalty mean more than ever in seasons like this. We look forward to serving you this year as always will continue to share updates as harvest approaches.
Check out this video, "wnep news farmers market"
