The Fruit Basket

Call Directions Contact the business

The Fruit Basket The Velarde Family Fruit Basket offers a variety of fresh, organic fruits and vegetables, including chile ristras and much more.

Open For the Season Until about a Week before Thanksgiving!
‼️‼️‼️WE ARE NOT ASSOCIATED WITH THE FRUIT BASKET IN ABQ‼️‼️‼️ Family Orchards Owned and Operated since 1598

We have always tried to support so many great causes. We have donated to many food hubs, and just recently we donated to...
10/16/2026

We have always tried to support so many great causes. We have donated to many food hubs, and just recently we donated to the Santa Fe Food Bank.
We not only support helping people in need, but we also help the Amish and Mennonite Communities. We are proud to support all these great causes. We are still picking apples, and we have not had a hard freeze. It has to drop down to 20-25 degrees to damage our fruit. Next weekend we will have a limited amount of Winesap Apples. We have finished picking all our vegetables, beans, and potatoes. We are done with our sunflowers for the season. We will close on November 15 th. If you have a WIC card, you must spend that money soon.

We have finished picking all our pumpkins. We have orange and Fairy Tale pumpkins. This crop was smaller than last year....
09/26/2026

We have finished picking all our pumpkins. We have orange and Fairy Tale pumpkins. This crop was smaller than last year. We had a difficult time with heat, rain, and w**ds. We do not use herbicides in our production and this year was a difficult year. Our farm team members worked hard with the wet weather and our out of control w**ds. It seemed to many passing that we had no crop, but it was there , just hiding amongst the w**ds. If I could sell w**ds and the many other local farmers, we would be millionaires. We will keep you posted on all our other crops that we are harvesting. Many are being picked and brought to the packing shed. We will start making more Chicos with our third picking of corn. Enjoy the crazy weather, but we a grateful for the rain.

On Monday, we received our New Mexico State Fair ribbons. We took 45 entries, and we brought home 43 Blue Ribbons and 2 ...
09/25/2026

On Monday, we received our New Mexico State Fair ribbons. We took 45 entries, and we brought home 43 Blue Ribbons and 2 Red Ribbons. We took first in so many categories. All our apples, peaches, pears, plums, beans, carrots, watermelons, cantaloupes, potatoes, pumpkins, chile, and onions took first-place ribbons. Our honey won both firsts for our amber and whipped honey. The judges do taste the honey and comment about the flavor, color, and aroma. They stated that this is the best honey that they have tasted. The fruit blossoms do excel in our honey. Our honey production and fruit production are verified by the USDA, and our beehives have to be registered with the USDA. We must give a special thank you to all our farm team members that makes all this possible. Without their hard work all year, we could not produce blue ribbon winners. A special thank you to all these hard workers is always appreciated. We have been taking our produce to the New Mexico State Fair for over 40 years, and we always win 95% blue ribbons.

We are picking plums, plumcots, and pluots. We have many varieties still to harvest. They range from black, red, green, ...
09/17/2026

We are picking plums, plumcots, and pluots. We have many varieties still to harvest. They range from black, red, green, and yellow. We have about 14 different varieties that will be ready to harvest. We hope that we can harvest these till the end of October. We will begin this Saturday harvesting our Sparkling Burgundy, old fashion, and double red delicious apples. We still have Granny Smith, Pink Lady, Red Romes, Winesap, Evercrisp, Yorks, and many more. With the warm weather and warm nights, the flavor and sweetness of the apples are ready, but the color is lacking. Might look green, but they are very sweet. We are preparing all our paperwork for our USDA Federal Agricultural Farm Inspection. We will keep you informed as the date of inspection gets nearer. So far, we have 2,500 pages of documents, policies, Standard Operating Procedures, and a list of other mandated documents that will be reviewed. They will send 3 Federal crop inspectors that day. We have always passed with a 96+ score.

We have started picking Jonathan apples. These are a heritage apple and can be used for eating, baking, canning, freezin...
09/14/2026

We have started picking Jonathan apples. These are a heritage apple and can be used for eating, baking, canning, freezing, and a great applesauce. These apples have been a long time staple of many Northern New Mexican cooks, a tart apple is what most people use for their baking and pressing juice. This is one of the apples we blend with other apples to create our juice. These apples are not 100% red and are smaller apples. We have been fortunate that all our farm workers are capable of grafting and we have been grafting trees in recent years. These trees are very hard to purchase and most commercial nurseries do not offer them for purchase.

Our Ch*****ne apples are almost ready to harvest. In about 10-15 days, we will begin to sell them at our fruit stand. Ou...
09/12/2026

Our Ch*****ne apples are almost ready to harvest. In about 10-15 days, we will begin to sell them at our fruit stand. Our family owns this trademark, and we have patents pending with the United States Government. These trademarks are with the State of New Mexico and the United States. Anyone claiming or using this trademark to sell or promote their apples or any other fruit is doing this illegally. This is trademark infringement, and they will be held accountable for monetary damages. If you know anyone who is using our trademark or farmers' markets that knowingly promote the name, please let us know; pictures and location are necessary. We do offer rewards to individuals who send us information. Your name will not be used to make these individuals accountable. We also hold the only grower license in New Mexico to grow and sell Pink Lady apples. This may seem harsh, but someone selling bad, tasteless, ugly apples only hurts the name and product, and people will associate these bad apples with our family name. Thank you for understanding and supporting our family farms and orchards. We hold many more trademarks for other fruit, beans, and melons.

We have entered our fruit and vegetables for judging at the New Mexico State Fair. We have entered about 35 entries this...
09/12/2026

We have entered our fruit and vegetables for judging at the New Mexico State Fair. We have entered about 35 entries this year. Everything from apples to watermelons and everything in between. We will let you know how many ribbons we receive this year. Looks like the competition will be extensive this year. This is a great venue to see if you go to the fair. We also had the opportunity to have 3 booths to display many of the products that we process and prepare in Velarde. We are so grateful that we have this opportunity to showcase what Northern New Mexico has to offer and the State as a whole. The agricultural building is historic and showcases all the county's agricultural production. They have exhibits and New Mexico Agricultural products for sale.

We have started to pick our red chile and are making our ristras. We have both pequin and large chile ristras. It is tak...
09/09/2026

We have started to pick our red chile and are making our ristras. We have both pequin and large chile ristras. It is taking a little more time to pick chile since our fields are a little w**dy this year. The heat and heavy rains have limited our w**d program this year. This has taught us some valuable lessons on w**d control. Many customers photograph our fruit stand and send us pictures. We appreciate all the beautiful photographs. We were interviewed by a social media person Saturday and she has 25 million followers. Once she uploads her video we will pass that information on to all our loyal customers. We have had so much interest this year about our family history, our farming practices and many seeking out assistance on their own farms. We are always willing to help anyone that farms. We also learn from many of you and your advice and knowledge is always welcomed.

We started to pick prunes yesterday. These plums are great for cooking and baking. Our family has been growing prunes fo...
08/25/2026

We started to pick prunes yesterday. These plums are great for cooking and baking. Our family has been growing prunes for many generations. We have many Native Americans who purchase large quantities for their cooking and Feast day. Many of our customers have a family tradition that requires prunes for their meals. We have many customers who come from Denver and Oklahoma to purchase our prunes. You can bake, stew, dry, and eat prunes. When drying prunes, either with the pit or you can remove the pit. Simply place the prunes on a screen sheet and allow them to dry at room temperature, or place them by a sunny window, and the prunes do everything themselves. We dry our prunes yearly, and you lose about 75% of their weight. We have drying racks, and we clean, wash, and pit our prunes. Our drying room takes about 7 days to dry completely. Seal them in an airtight container, and they will last several years. The prunes will start off a brilliant blue and change color to black. Next week will start to pick many more varieties of plumcots and pulots. Our large peaches will be ready now, after Tuesday and into the weeks ahead.

Our watermelons, cantaloupe, corn, potatoes, carrots, and chile are progressing very well. We hope to have watermelon an...
08/11/2026

Our watermelons, cantaloupe, corn, potatoes, carrots, and chile are progressing very well. We hope to have watermelon and cantaloupe very soon. We have had a problem this year with w**d control. We do not use any type of herbicide. The heat has grown the w**ds faster than we can control, and in many cases our vines have spread out into the w**ds and control is not possible. All the other large row crop farmers are experiencing the same problem. Lack of labor has intensified this problem. We did cultivate early in the year, but the w**ds love heat. The vegetables will remain just as sweet and large, just a little w**dy. It seems with early observation, the w**ds are helping with moisture control. Seems we learn a little more every season about row crops, heat, and w**ds. One year we will get it right.

Address

1413 Highway 68
Velarde, NM
87582

Opening Hours

Monday 8am - 6pm
Tuesday 8am - 6pm
Wednesday 8am - 6pm
Thursday 8am - 6pm
Friday 8am - 6pm
Saturday 8am - 6pm
Sunday 8am - 6pm

Telephone

(505) 852-2310

Website

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when The Fruit Basket posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Contact The Business

Send a message to The Fruit Basket:

Shortcuts

Share

Category