HutLo Acres is a certified organic farm located in Carleton County, New Brunswick. We, Michael Hutton and Essie Lom, have owned the farm since the late 1970’s. While Essie continues to teach, Michael has “retired” to run the farm.

The main focus of our operation is a 5-acre orchard composed mainly of apple trees with some plums and pears. We also grow some specialty potatoes (All-blues, fingerlings), plus onions and garlic for thefarm market.

The farm is in climate zone 3b (or maybe 4a); this, combined with a shallow soil, makes apple growing difficult. Our cold snowy winters (most winters will see over a metre of snow depth), late frosts and strong storms mean that cold-hardy, sturdy trees are a necessity. With our Maritime humidity and moisture, scab-immune or resistant trees are also a must. We eventually settled on three main varieties for fresh eating: Redfree, NovaMac and Liberty, but we also have heirloom varieties like Wealthy, Yellow Transparent and New Brunswicker. The latter two are local pie-apple favourites. We have mainly European plums (necessitating local sales only) and some Asian pears (which have yet to bear fruit).

When we started, there was little information on growing tree fruit organically. Over the years, we collected, from various sources, information on tree varieties, insect and disease control, pruning and grafting. Some methods have worked, while with others, it’s been “back to the drawing board”.

During the summer, we’ll try to illustrate some of our growing techniques. They vary from very low-tech, labour-intensive to quite high-tech, labour-intensive. As examples, consider the wrapping of a strip of cardboard around the trunk of each fruit-bearing tree to collect pupating larvae, and the use of pheromone twist ties to confuse male codling moths. If there’s one thing we have learned about organic growing, it is that there is no quick fix! Each method takes time, care and evaluation.