TEMPLETON — If you’re in the market for apples, particularly something beyond your run-of-the-mill MacIntosh, you’re in luck. Pease Orchard, located in the Brooks Village section of Templeton, has plenty of varieties of apples to choose from. They also have plenty of peaches – grown on site – and a wide selection of produce raised on local farms.
“We were established back in 1912,” said owner Dave Pease. “It was my grandfather, Lester Newton Pease, and his brother, Clarence Pease, who set it up in 1912. And it’s been in the family ever since – about three generations. We’ve taken some sabbaticals along the way; I’ve been in the golf business for the past 44 or 45 years, from the agronomic end of it. I was the director of the ground crew for a major golf operation in New Jersey.”
Pease said he was able to get an early buy-out with the organization, and “come back here and take over the legacy of Pease Orchard. Actually, my grandmother, when I was going to school at UMass, asked me, ‘Hey, do you think you’d ever come back here?’ I think they were thinking about what they were going to do with the place. And I said, ‘Yeah, I really would like to come back here.’ My childhood was here, and I thought, what better place to come back to. It’s a beautiful community, kind of a bucolic setting. I wasn’t sure it would fall together, but it actually did.”
Pease said he would like to see the business stay in the family.
“When my kids get done doctoring and lawyer-ing and such, I suppose they may come back here,” he said. “It would be nice to see it. I’ve got a couple of grandsons, and one who is kind of liking this horticultural stuff. So, we’ll see. You never know.”
Pease said between the apple and peach orchards, a woodlot, and a garden, his farm consists of just under 40 acres.
“The orchard portion has contracted over the years,” said Pease. “We’ve got over 27 different apple varieties, so, over 700 trees. And we have about 100 peach trees; 10 different varieties.”
Pease said he’s been helped a great deal by Hugh Cameron, the orchard’s director of operations. Cameron, who started out simply picking apples, has been with the operation for about 12 years.
“Hugh does a lot of our off-campus marketing,” said Pease. “He’s taken a unique interest in pomology, the growing of the fruit, and it’s been a great relationship over the years.”
Pease explained that the peaches “get our cash flow going, because that’s the first thing that comes in. We just started picking them last week. The apples are still a couple of weeks away, and that’s when we start getting really busy.”
“Back in the old days,” he said, “people would come out and pick their own apples because that was the only way to get them. Today, it’s turned into a family outing. It gives people a chance to experience the old way of doing things, to get closer to the product, to see how it’s grown. It shows the kids that these things don’t just show up in a grocery store.”
The Pease Orchard farm stand is located at 11 Phillipston Rd. in Templeton, near the intersection of Phillipston, Queen Lake, Brooks Village, Old North, and Carruth roads. Signs pointing the way to Pease Orchard can be seen on Route 2A in both Phllipston and Templeton.
The Apple Shed is open from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. every Saturday and Sunday from the first weekend in September until the last weekend before Thanksgiving.
In addition to apples and peaches, Pease offers fresh sweet apple cider, fresh baked pies, apple dumplings, apple turnovers, coffee cake bread, local honey, local maple syrup, maple syrup candies, jams and preserves, cider mulling spices, pancaked mixes, pumpkins, fresh fall vegetables, fresh flowers, gift boxes, and knitted items.
For more information go to peaseorchard.com or visit facebook.com/peaseorchard.