Organic Orchard Farm Walk Monday

With the Fruit Grower Report I am Susan Allen. There are so many aspects to managing an organic orchard from cover crops that build soil quality to pest and disease issues. To have farmers who have been doing this for over 30 years to brainstorm with well that is pretty darn cool and that's what you will experience at the upcoming Farm Walk Monday at Cliffside Orchard in Kettle Falls . It's brought to you by the Tilth Producers and WSU. Here's Tilth Producers Elizabeth Murphy:

MURPHY: So we are really excited to offer this Farm Walk at Cliffside Orchard in the 34 years since Jeff and Jeannette Herman bought their orchard in Kettle Falls they're operation has grown to include a thousand trees, including apricots, peaches, pears ,plums cherries, nectarines and apples and many varieties of each. So it's a great opportunity for growers to learn about organic management on a extremely diversified orchard. Soil health is another big management theme we will be covering, it's something Cliffside Orchards practices extensively by focusing on cover cropping. Some really interesting cover crop management on their orchard as well as alternating schedules of planting cover, tilling and leaving the ground fallow to build soil fertility across their orchards.

They have also have been extremely successfully with direct marketing. Elizabeth says they can show up in Seattle and sell all their fruit in a couple hours. They will talk about developing a loyal customer base. For information on this tour visit tilthproducers.org