Please give us some details about your operation, such as what you produce and how consumers use your products.
Tree-Mendus Fruit Farm is located in southwest Michigan. We’re 15 miles from the shore of Lake Michigan, about 25 miles north of the Indiana-Michigan border and 100 miles from Chicago. We’re a destination, especially for people in Chicago. About 60 percent of our customers drive 100 miles to reach us.
Tree-Mendus Fruit is a family-operated farm. We have 450 acres, over 30,000 fruit trees and about 80 acres of old-forest woodlands.
From seven main fruit crops, customers can pick from over 300 varieties of fruit produced on the farm. Cherries, apricots, nectarines, peaches, plums, pears and over 200 varieties of apples are naturally good and tree-ripened. Our fruit is available for families to pick fresh, in season, from the tree. Or customers can choose from our hand-picked selection, harvested daily for our country store. Our belief is that after biting into a fresh piece of fruit at our farm, you’ll want to say, “Treeeeee-Mendus!”
Our country market carries our own Tree-Mendus specialty products and other products made in Michigan or unique to agriculture. You won’t want to leave without a jar of Tree-Mendus Fruit’s own Cherry Brite cherry topping, the same topping we use on our cherry waffles.
Before or after your excursion to the orchard, you can enjoy our quiet recreation area with picnic tables, playground and farm animal corral – the ideal atmosphere for clean, outdoor family fun.
Tree-Mendus Fruit Farm is also home of the world famous International Cherry Pit Spitting Championship, the only Cherry Pit Spitting Contest recognized by the Guinness World Records.
Learn more about us at http://www.treemendus-fruit.com/.
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What’s unique about your operation?
Tree-Mendus Fruit grows one of the largest selections of apples in the world, with over 230 varieties that span the centuries. Our heritage apple collection lets you explore apples in all sizes, shapes, colors and flavors. (Varieties include the Golden Russet, Holiday, Jonathan, Calville Blanc D'hiver and Esopus Spitzenberg.)
We also operate a popular Rent-A-Tree program in our private family tree orchard. Here, you can rent and visit your very own apple tree for the season. We perform all normal cultural practices except thinning and harvesting. When the apples are ready for harvest, you and your family come and pick all the fruit from your tree!
The outdoor Valley Chapel nestled in the trees near the picnic area is a pleasant area for weddings. Harvest and orchard tours to accommodate motor coach groups are also very popular. Visitors can tour either by coach or aboard our “Folkswagon.” Combine a tour with one of our country-style chicken dinners and you’ll be saying, “Treeeeee-Mendus!”
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How did you get into farming?
My parents moved here in 1927. They started with 160 acres they bought on contract during the Depression. (As the farm’s Web site recalls, Herb’s father William, an enterprising young man, sold some of his carload of fresh apples to a young lady, Leone, at the Pennsylvania Railroad station in Ft. Wayne, Ind., and a budding relationship ensued. The pair married two years later and established what was originally called Skyline Orchards. Because their romance sparked over a basket of Jonathan apples, William’s first planting was 15 acres of Jonathans. It was unheard of at that time to plant so much of one variety. Two rows of those Jonathan apples still exist on the farm today.)
I was in the Navy for four years and went to Michigan State University. I kind of liked farming; I liked the land. I thought this is what I’ll do. My wife Liz was in favor of it, so we got into it.
We purchased the farm from my parents in 1969 and transitioned it to direct sales. The direct marketing started with friends and neighbors buying. We’ve done direct sales since 1970 and are pretty much now independent of commercial sales, although we do sell to Whole Foods.
Today, our son Bill manages the farm and his wife Monica manages the retail market. They have three children so we’re going into the fourth generation. Our daughter Cindy DeValk handles the animals and works with her husband Glen on the U-pick operation. Glen is the orchard director and Cindy is the assistant orchard director. Our daughter Lynne Sage is in horticultural research at Michigan State University and right now is studying the habits of the Honeycrisp apple. She has one child.
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What do you want consumers to know about agriculture, farm families and/or about what you specifically produce?
A healthy family and a healthy country are derived from food. You can run out of gasoline and still get around. But if you run out of food, you won’t go far.
[So] get out there and make a garden or visit a farm. If anyone in the city hasn’t got a farm friend, they should take a drive into the country and stop where it looks inviting, where there’s a sign that says farm produce. Go in and make acquaintance with the people there – and the dog and the family – and bring your family to get a better understanding and build a relationship. Don’t be afraid to stop and make friends.
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What should consumers know about how you take care of the land?
On some areas of the farm you’ll see places where it’s erodible and it’s natural for a woodlot. Timber likes erodible land; it likes to live there. So we’re real proud we have a lot of timber…and we’re not disturbing it. We do harvest the timber when it’s ready and it’s mature. We don’t plant trees; we let nature have its way. As a result, we’re getting a good mix and it’s natural. The tree came there because it enjoyed that location. That’s the reason for it.
I also don’t feel I have ownership. I feel I have custody of this land for a period of time and I’m here to represent the world. I’m sincere in that. So when I leave this farm I’d like to have it said, it’s better now that it was or as good as. And when people who come here and visit I’d like them to feel as though they had a part to play in that.
We don’t do a lot of irrigation. We don’t change the atmosphere. Our fruit is pretty much representative of what’s at this latitude. [The region’s soil and climate] is a gem and should be recognized that way, the same as a mountain, a big lake or a volcano.
Most everyone knows that we spray. We spray only when we need to and that is the determination of the farmer. He has to make the decision like an umpire. Did the ball come across the plate or did it not? Is it a ball or strike? We ask ourselves: is it an infection period or not? This spring we decided it was not an infection period and we got caught. We have some disease in our apples this year and I’m very sorry for that. I explain that to our customers.
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What’s the best aspect of being a farmer?
I think you gain independence. I have always felt that if I were to be dropped off any place in the world from an airplane, when I landed I could make a living. I think that gives you a good feeling – to know you could make it no matter what happens.
Right now I feel if all the stores closed in three days, it’d be a problem. There’d be people hungry and they’d do about anything to get something to eat. I believe that I can provide for our family and the neighborhood with this product, and I have enough people and friends who would do trading and we could live.
I don’t think I’d have that feeling if I were in the city and cement – like if I lived on the 30th floor of some of those apartment buildings with no freezer, nothing in reserve. When I go into the pantry at the end of the season and see all the jars lined up shiny, I feel secure.
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What worries farmers more than their peers in other professions, such as accounting, law, medicine?
Liability surrounding agri-tourism:
In the winter time we trim every tree so that when the growth starts in the spring they’re no taller than the average person, 5 or 6 feet tall and people can reach the top of them. That’s because the business we’re in is a fun thing, and people don’t think ladders are fun. Little kids do but not adults. So we try to keep ladders out of the orchard.
Media sensationalism. (For example, calling H1N1 the “swine flu.”)
The same thing happened in apples with the Alar scare. We were actually required to use it in order to make a sale. Then all at once it was put out all over the world that Alar was reportedly harmful and we had to quit using it to save our business. We lost a lot of money in that.
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Please add anything about other consumer-oriented efforts you are involved in.
This past summer Tee-Mendus Fruit held the 36th annual International Cherry Pit Spitting Championship.
As a young person with my sister picking cherries late in the afternoon, it was tempting to goof off a little. I remember as a child challenging my sister to a spitting contest. “Can you hit that bucket with that cherry pit? How far can you spit? Can you hit that tree trunk over there?” These things were fun.
When I started in retail sales we had a cherry pitter and washing facilities. While mothers and dads were cleaning their cherries and pitting them, the kids were running around and I said, “Why don’t we draw a line here and see how far you can spit.” The kids liked that. Pretty soon the mothers and fathers were getting involved. So I thought we’ll just make a game out of it.
I had a friend who said you can get (the competition) into the Guinness Book of World Records. Guinness accepted it and they’ve kept us.
Then we got challenges from Europe, so their competitors would come over to spit and we’d send ours over to spit, and we had international tourism.
People from around the country will come here to see what this crazy thing is all about and some will participate and come out a winner.
(In case you’re wondering, Rick “Pellet Gun” Krause, of Tuba City, Ariz., won this year’s championship with a spitting distance of 48 feet, one-half inches. Rick and his 30-year-old son Brian “Young Gun” Krause, of Jackson, Mich., have dominated the event in 22 of the past 36 years. This year’s win marks the sixth lowest distance in the history of the International Cherry Pit Spitting Championship and the shortest distance ever spat by a Krause to win the title. Brian is a seven-time international champion and holder of the world’s record at 93 feet, 6-1/2 inches.)
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