Family Tradition

My father's family has been growing fruit in America for over a century, but the tradition of agriculture goes back to Italy before mechanized equipment and modern marketing.

Ben's Great-Great Grandparents -- note the hand formed wooden tools!

My dad grew up in the Hudson Valley region of New York State, with apple trees right outside the back door. My Grandfather taught Dad a lot about commercial growing while meticulously caring for his apple trees, and telling stories about his experience on a family farm in Wallingford, Connecticut, as they worked together whenever Dad was home from school.

Dad learned to drive on grandpa's tractor. We still run this one on our farm!

When I was old enough to go to work myself, Dad bought me a shovel. At the age of three, I helped Mom and Dad plant the second block of trees on our farm in Brooklyn, Connecticut. Since then, everything we grow here takes the love, work and patience of the whole family.

Here's a "bucket load" of Good stuff, some of which we proudly donate to the local food bank.

Our farm uses many traditional methods, but we take growing the best apples very seriously. A blending of new and old ideas gives every Benjamin's Orchard apple a unique quality.

Using Integrated Pest Management and many natural insect and disease deterrents, we are as close to true organic standards in our spray selections as practical. We do not use chemical growth stimulants on our fruit, and when the crop load is too heavy for a tree, it is thinned by hand.

Despite the extra work, we still harvest by hand into wooden bushel baskets rather than huge bins, to prevent crushing and bruising of the fruit.

We sell our fresh apple customers the very best apples a tree can produce.

Each apple is washed and inspected carefully during grading and packing. Because we are so picky, we usually end up making cider, jam, applesauce, and pies from apples that other orchards would grade as fresh table fruit. In fact, my family is committed to producing the highest quality apples and apple products possible...

and because of this commitment, we conduct a limited amount of sales in order to focus on offering consistently superior customer service.

For this reason, we have chosen not to open our orchard to the public for "Pick Your Own", but we do encourage you to shop our Online Farmstand! And, feel free to give us a call to arrange a visit and some very personal attention.

As you can see by my Blue Ribbon award at New England's famous Brooklyn Fair, most people agree:

The quality we grow can't be better!"