Cover Story
Diversifying brings big challenges
Moving away fromapple production has been both gratifying and frustrating for the Cross family.
By Judie Steeves A
lthough they admit that all the money has been going the wrong way during the past year, Glenn and Loretta Cross of Kelowna believe the answer to today’s low apple prices lies in diversification. Convinced of this seven years ago, when Loretta left the provincial liquor distribution branch after 23 years, she opened a fruit stand at the family farm on Highway 33. That meant enlarging the family garden to provide a variety of produce for the general public throughout the summer season.
“I love growing stuff and I wanted to be my own boss,” she explains with a rueful grin. “I figured I’d get paid for what I do—but what a mistake.”
However, she concedes that although the money is not great, it is rewarding to see how the operation has grown and to know they have achieved all of this. The 50-acre orchard, predominantly apples, was bought in 1942 by Glenn’s father—and his mother, now 91, still lives there.
He has been working in the orchard all his life, and did some replanting during the 1990s and early 2000s, but he still has Macs, Spartans and a few Reds, along with the Ambrosias, Royal Galas and Honeycrisp apples. After 36 years operating the farm, Glenn says he has seen lots of ups and downs in the market for apples, but never four years in a row like this, with no money from the crop. “I didn’t want all my eggs in one basket,” he explained. So, now they’re pulling apples and planting corn and berries, peppers and tomatoes.
The apples are down to 32 acres, the pears are gone and there are two acres of cherries: Lapins, Rainier and Staccato, along with some apricots and peaches, 10 varieties of plums and even blueberries, both Duke and Bluecrop. About four years ago, they planted some corn for the fruit stand, and today they have nine acres of corn where apple trees used to grow.
Not only do they supply visitors with fresh fruit and vegetables from their fruit stand, Function Junction, they
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JUDIE STEEVES
The ‘functions’ at Function Junction have gone beyond tree fruits to include market gardening and the production of juice and cider.
began supplying local chefs with specialty produce a few years ago.
That started when Loretta’s step-brother, who was a sous chef at Mission Hill Family Estate winery, suggested they buy some of the fresh produce off the farm. Today, they even plant some special items for particular chefs and their restaurants, as well as supplying the kitchens of some seniors’ residences.
The latter began when they started holding little farmer’s markets for seniors, with produce packaged so they could buy a toonie’s worth of fresh stuff. They now deliver to a number of seniors’ residences, even though there’s not much money in that.
Once the market garden was established, they put up three cold frames so they could get their plants in the ground sooner, and enlarged the garden. Everything is hand-picked, but they try to plant so they can cultivate with the tractor. “With this wet spring it was sure hard to keep up with the weeds though,” Glenn comments.
At first, a few people would compare their prices with those in the stores, but they point out that the corn is hand- picked every day. It’s not machine-picked corn, and not shipped in from miles away, so it’s really fresh. “There’s no comparison to what’s imported and sold in
British Columbia FRUIT GROWER • Fall 2012
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