U-Pick Orchard Catering To Families With Children

I have kids, and I love families, and I believe that getting to know the joy of the garden is essential for a healthy soul.

So, the idea is to create an interactive experience for families to come and engage with a mini orchard built with permaculture principles on place yet within the context of creating a maximally attractive atmosphere for families who don't share the same ethos and sensibilities to still find attractive.

I've been reading Grow A Little Fruit Tree by Ann Ralph. It's wonderful, and is solidifying some practices I've been experimenting with for awhile, due to my (here's a new term a friend shared that I love) chaos cramming of maximum plant buddies into my system.

But, the idea of an u-pick orchard full of hundreds of beautifully pruned 4-8' tall fruit trees of every variety of fruit I can manage to grow, surrounded by well-managed berry bushes and vines of every sort (in the understory or adjacent or climbing up arbors and trellises and so forth), with ground covers and herbaceous fruiting friends as well, that is also immaculately maintained and growing incredible ornamental specimens of all manner with benches and bridges and ponds and a waterfall and all that good stuff, is attractive to me as a vehicle for spreading the message.

This hypothetical operation would host classes and events, too, of course, like:

- Gardening Basics
- Advanced Gardening Topics
- Basic Horticultural Practices
- Advanced Horticultural Practices
- Water In The Landscape
- etc

Many of these classes would focus on families and kids, according to my values and also because I believe that's the most effective way to make a lasting difference.

Let me teach you a principle I discovered with a pal of mine:

I call it the social DDoS.

Basically, you flood your opponent with opportunities to work on projects where your values align so frequently that it diminishes or removes their ability to operate in areas you don't agree on. In this way, you turn your opponent into your ally by targeted, incessant cooperation with your coalition.

This idea is similar to that, but gentler. It's an attractively engineered passive invitation rather than an active tactical operation.

Okay, but back to the U-Pick.

What I'm most excited about is creating positive experiences for the littles. Imagine one of the children in your life walking through a beautiful garden full of lovely flowers, and all manner of fruit to pick and eat growing on shrubs and trees that are pruned to keep the fruit within reach.

They can pick and eat anything and everything they want. There's a garden guide there to keep everyone safe and to introduce and explain different plants.

Additionally, there are benches, interactive areas, activities, secret gardens, and other delights which increase both the comfort and the magic of the experience. Everyone ought to leave the garden with a plant to take home, too.

I'm thinking a flat fee structure would be the way to keep the business profitable. Admission gets you the walking tour, a basket with a large central cavity and smaller ones on the side for holding the fruit, participation in the activities, and a plant to take home. Something like that.

Then, at the Garden Shop, there could be value added products from the garden and local producers as well as fresh produce available to purchase by the pound or in larger quantities.

Also, having an area for both working and retail shops available for rent to local craftsmen, food, and artists would add charm, another revenue stream, and added foit traffic.

Seasonal events would be key in this hypothetical operation as well.

Okay this kid-height orchard idea is really clever, I've never heard of anyone doing this yet, its like a garden free-for-all where the kids can eat lots of healthy fruits and veggies and explore at the same time, super cool idea.

Chance Lunceford wrote:Imagine one of the children in your life walking through a beautiful garden full of lovely flowers, and all manner of fruit to pick and eat growing on shrubs and trees that are pruned to keep the fruit within reach.

They can pick and eat anything and everything they want. There's a garden guide there to keep everyone safe and to introduce and explain different plants.

Additionally, there are benches, interactive areas, activities, secret gardens, and other delights which increase both the comfort and the magic of the experience. Everyone ought to leave the garden with a plant to take home, too.

Sounds like a permies theme park!

There might have to be a few ground rules e.g. no climbing on trees except for these ones, no picking/eating unsupervised (not everything in a forest garden is edible...)

Other ideas - treasure hunts for items to spot (or eat), musical objects (Xylophones or hanging wooden chimes are great)

I think Sepp Holzer, at least at one stage, had a simple admission fee to the Krameterhof as his pricing structure. He found it got round lots of food regulations (all those people stealing his vegetables/meat...   )

Nancy,

Rules are important, for certain.

I love the idea of a treasure/scavenger hunt, or a bingo card of fruit eating and other fun stuff. That's awesome.

There could potentially be adults at some of the stations advising on what's edible and what's not, and for simple things like apples parents would know.  Thornless berry bushes please.  Loving the chimes and xylophones idea too.

So, in terms of adults on hand, I was thinking a guided tour could be a great option, especially with the younger crowd.

Run 'em every hour or two (or on demand, depending on the needs of the operation), have lots of interactivity and room for improvisation as the curiosity of the group demands.

if you get hooked up with the library and homeschool crowd, this would be huge.

I am thinking about how many times we've been picking. A lot of orchards have the small trees, and it's lovely. That time of year there are often pumpkins or other products available. It's a good opportunity for pumpkin painting or picking squash (carving might get complicated).

So many places I went to as a kid had petting zoos, donuts, cider, things like that.

I do love the idea of fruit bingo. That's fabulous.
I guess if your focus is on kids and not on people picking volume (in my experience, the other major market group at U-pick operations) then charging per-head with a bag included, you can take home that much, seems easiest.

I think I'd be more concerned about adults being stupid than kids getting into trouble, although to be sure you'd need to be super careful about fencing off bodies of water, keeping kids away from animals, and even maybe things like wasps (maybe just cleaning up fallen apples often enough takes care of that).

Tereza Okava wrote:if you get hooked up with the library and homeschool crowd, this would be huge.

I am thinking about how many times we've been picking. A lot of orchards have the small trees, and it's lovely. That time of year there are often pumpkins or other products available. It's a good opportunity for pumpkin painting or picking squash (carving might get complicated).

So many places I went to as a kid had petting zoos, donuts, cider, things like that.

I do love the idea of fruit bingo. That's fabulous.
I guess if your focus is on kids and not on people picking volume (in my experience, the other major market group at U-pick operations) then charging per-head with a bag included, you can take home that much, seems easiest.

I think I'd be more concerned about adults being stupid than kids getting into trouble, although to be sure you'd need to be super careful about fencing off bodies of water, keeping kids away from animals, and even maybe things like wasps (maybe just cleaning up fallen apples often enough takes care of that).

There are some cool places here in Utah Valley that are farm-based seasonal amusement locales, with corn mazes and pumpkin patches and cider/donuts, and farm stores and such.

There are also some U-Pick Orchards.

There is also a place called Thanksgiving Point which has shops for craftsmen, a large garden grounds (including a world famous tulip festival in the spring where they plant more than a million bulbs, and then they sell them at the end of the season, so I've purchased like 10 dozen bulbs over the years), and other attractions.

What I want to build is something like a combination of all three, with an amphitheater for concerts, weddings, and other events, and a seasonal bed and breakfast. The U-Pick would be a step in that direction.

A good idea in general, but make sure to be insured up to your eyeballs because unfortunately, people are gonna be people and you don't want to be held liable.


how 'bout that? My very first comment!

Lidi Nunya wrote:A good idea in general, but make sure to be insured up to your eyeballs because unfortunately, people are gonna be people and you don't want to be held liable.


how 'bout that? My very first comment!

Welcome to the party.

Insurance+Waivers is the move, I think.

If I had an orchard that I wanted to attracts kids to I would have a petting zoo, playground equipment, and a ice cream store with fruit flavored ice creams.

Frozen treats made from the fruit you grow -- with free recipes given out.

Ice cream, sorbet, sherbet, gelato, all sounds good.

In fact, there's a guy two cities North of me who makes gelato as authentically as possible, using either local or imported Italian ingredients. I learned about him from a local store that sells specialty oil and vinegar, plus macrons and gelato. They get their gelato from this gentleman. If he's still doing this thing when I'm ready, I'll contract with him to make gelato using my fruit and local milk.

Also, one of the things I'll do in the future is contract with local pig farmers to bring in a certain amount of pigs at the end of the season to eat the fruit and nuts on the ground, loosen the soil, and fertilize, using a paddock-shift.

These are then top shelf specialty pigs that taste like the season, with their newly sweet and nutty flavored fat, which can sell for more than good beef to the right family to enjoy during their fall/winter celebrations.

Anyway, that's a bit of a tangent. Heh.

And, of course, preserves/jams/jellies/butters from the fruits are an easy value add.

What would also be cool is a class teaching how to make those things with the fruit you just picked.

Chance Lunceford wrote:What would also be cool is a class teaching how to make those things with the fruit you just picked.

I was just going to suggest a make your own slushy/smoothie!