COUNTRY LIFE IN BC • JANUARY 2020
Labour of love keeps historic
farm in family Twin Oaks offers home-grown organics at reasonable prices
by MYRNA STARK LEADER
KELOWNA – Karl and Charlotte Hammann are the proud third-generation owners of Twin Oaks Organic Orchard, one of BC’s many farms that were once rural. Their 20-acre parcel sits at the base of Kuipers Peak overlooking Lake Okanagan. The farm was once part of a large land holding belonging to Charlotte’s family on the edge of Kelowna. Today, it sits in the Agricultural Land Reserve, but the few nearby farms are surrounded by residential properties. Charlotte’s grandparents,
Marius and Sarie Kuipers, bought the property when they arrived from the Netherlands in 1920. When apple prices fell in the 1980s, their son Richard sold 160 acres of the property to developers. The peak above the subdivision that was built still bears his name. The sale saved the farm and
after his death in 2015, the remaining 20 acres was divided and passed to his son Vincent, and to Charlotte. (Vincent farms his portion separately.) “My grandfather used to
say, ‘Is your father up on that mountain again when he’s supposed to be working?’ My dad loved it up there. That was before the forest fire in 2003. There were trees and mosses. We used to call part of it Fir Valley. There was a spring in there,” Charlotte recalls from her seat at the family dining table.
Since 2011, when they came back to the farm to help Richard as the farm got to be too much for him, Charlotte, Karl and their three now school-aged children built on the fact that the land hadn’t been disturbed in 15 to 20 years to obtain organic certification. Today, the farm produces and sells organic cherries, apricots, peaches, pears, prunes/plums, apples, table grapes, hazelnuts and walnuts, many berries and honey to customers who stop by from late June through the end of October. It only takes a quick walk to see that this isn’t a typical orchard. “My husband is from
Germany and grew up on a trout farm. He has literally rebuilt this place, including the
house built in 1921. We lifted it and built around it with our shop downstairs. Karl loves diversity so on our farm you can see a tree planted during the war and right next to it is a little new tree. This is what is lacking today – the respect between the elder and the younger – and it’s right here in the orchard,” says Charlotte with a smile.
The farm is self-sustaining. The Hammanns produce compost to make soil. They also put up more than 300 jars of preserves for themselves each year (they’re not for sale). They also plant about four new deciduous trees annually to help the environment. In their wood-heated home, they’re still burning timber from the apple trees her father cut down when the old orchard on the property became infested with codling moth. “Those are all the fruit trees
I grew up with. My grandfather planted them,” Charlotte explains, pointing to the wood pile. “They had about 30 acres of apples, stone fruits and cattle.” Like many farmers, the Hammanns love and respect their land. There is a special bond from operating a family farm that will mark its centennial this year. “We don’t mow the grass outside of the orchard so that the birds and insects have a place to live. When I grew up, you’d hardly see a lady bug and now we have large mats of them in the fall. They’re beautiful. Wasps and hornets are my best friends because they eat more pests in the orchard than anything else. They eat all the scabs that you find on fruit and vegetables. We’re trying to let nature do as
See PERFECTION on next page o
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Karl and Charlotte Hammann have a diversified orchard and market stand in Kelowna. MYRNA STARK LEADER PHOTO
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