Our Orchard

How We Do It

Our orchard is located high in the valley near the base of Mount Hood. We planted our first cherry tree in 1993, the same day our youngest son was born. Since then, we have grown to 275 acres of sweet cherries. We’ve also added a large cold storage facility and a small cherry processing plant on site, just a few steps from the orchard. We constantly improve our horticultural and packaging practices to deliver sweet, crisp, delicious cherries to our customers.

Our competitors call us crazy. Some days, we agree with them. However, we believe the only way to grow premium tree-ripened cherries is the way we do it: the hard way.

We began by planting an orchard dedicated to premium fruit. While the industry’s goal is 10 tons of fruit per acre, we typically harvest about half that. Our low tonnage per acre means our fruit receives more nutrients, resulting in larger, better-tasting, sweeter cherries.

Next, we allow the cherries to remain on the tree, growing plump and sweet until the sugar level reaches at least 21 brix (industry standard starts at 15 brix). We pick and size the cherries by hand instead of using automated machines to avoid jostling and bruising the fruit. We hand-select the cherries — size 10.5-row and larger — for every box.

Because of the orchard’s high elevation, our tree-ripened cherries take longer to mature and are available later in the season. Tree-ripened fruit shouldn’t endure a long, hot, bumpy ride in a truck to be processed, so we decided to build a packing house right here at the orchard where our cherries are hydro-cooled within one hour of being picked. We only pack fruit from our own acreage to maintain high-quality standards from tree to box.

Sound crazy? Get back to us after you’ve tasted our cherries.