At first glance, it doesn’t look like much is happening if you pull into Maple Ridge Orchard on one of their “days off”.
But behind the scenes, a core group of seasonal staff are working row-by-row through the brisk autumn mornings and days to pick, pile, and pack the orchard’s most abundant apple: the Honeycrisp – the one that started it all.
Back in 2002, Domingo and Lisa Rodriguez tasted a Honeycrisp apple for the first time. By the spring of 2003, the couple was breaking ground with shovels and planting their first apple trees on their farm just north of Portland on Maple Avenue. They started out selling on the side of the road, and eventually to grocery stores and farmers’ markets.
Fast forward 23 years, Maple Ridge Orchard now consists of 5,000 trees, with 80% of them being Honeycrisp.
Lisa says that this year’s bounty is due to a number of factors that all starts with the number of trees but ends up being determined by Mother Nature.
“Some years we have hail, some years we have rot, frost, poor pollination,” said Rodriguez. “We need to grow more than what we need.”
Since the weather has been favorable, they certainly have more than they need.
“Honeycrisp is at it’s peak and in abundance,” according to Domingo. He says there’s plenty to pick yet.
Maple Ridge Orchard offers a “u-pick” bag for purchase so that guests can find and forage the 20-acre farm for their own fruit to have that signature fall season experience. The apples are easy to suss out since bunches of the bright red fruit are bundled on branches.
Rodriguez says guests are also welcome to help pick apples for charity for a slight discount on their purchase. At the end of the season, boxes of apples are donated to local food pantries.
While Honeycrisp is the hot commodity, Maple Ridge offers many different cultivars of apples for different culinary needs.
Available in the cooler right now is Crimson Crisp, Fuji, Cortland, MacIntosh, and Riverbelle. They grow 21 different apples, so a number of them are out of season but several are up for harvest in October: Empire, Ambrosia, Regent, Jonagold, Pazazz, Fireside, and Cameo.
As if apples weren’t enough, there is fresh cider, cider donuts, caramel apples, baked goods, and many other goodies in their retail store.
Maple Ridge Orchard is free to enter, and features an observation tower to get a view of the entire operation. There is also a slide and other playground features for kiddos.
