We will now open August 8th at 2:00pm!

It has been so cool these last few weeks that the peaches have slowed their growth down a bit! We are going to give them another week or so to sweeten up and we hope to see a few of you on Saturday, August 8th from 2:00pm-6:00pm for some apples! The peaches will follow towards the end of August! They will be worth your wait!

Picking Guidelines

To our loyal customers! We need your help to protect your fruit! As many of you who have visited now know, we explain our picking guidelines before giving you a bag and sending you out to the orchard to pick your fruit.

Unfortunately, we experienced some significant losses last season as a result of our guidelines not being respected. Apples were picked months before they should have been picked. School groups had to be turned away because the fruit on the tree that we had reserved for them and not flagged for public picking was picked anyway. Fruit was pulled off the tree and not twisted and lifted and major branches were broken.

Our picking guideline is:
NO FLAG, NO PICK!

We ask that you only pick from trees with the flags like the one in this picture! And we ask that you please twist and lift, do not pull, do not break our branches or there will be no fruit on that branch for you to enjoy next year.

That’s it! And here’s why!

We have 11 different varieties of peaches that ripen at varying times over 3 months and 166 different varieties of apples that ripen at varying times over 5 months and 6 different varieties of pears that ripen at varying times over 2 months so not all fruit that you see on the trees is ripe at the same time even if it looks like it should be! For example, the Arkansas Black apple is a beautiful red in August but is not prime for picking until November 1. Picked any earlier, this apple will not taste good.We make it easy for you to identify what to pick by flagging only those trees that are ready to be picked.

Trees that have fruit and are not flagged (and therefore not to be picked) fall into one of the following categories:

• Trees that are not ripe and will not taste right if picked before their time.


• Trees that we are experimenting with. We are trying to reestablish nearly extinct Kansas apple varieties. Many of our trees are heirloom varieties that have not been grown in our region for over 100 years and we are trying to preserve their existence.


• Trees that are reserved for school, scouting and other children’s groups for educational purposes.

Our theory as to why there are so few pick-your-own orchards in the area (several of which have gone out of business just in the last two years) is that the disregard for picking guidelines and resulting damages make it more profitable for the farmer to pick their own fruit and sell to the grocery stores or in pre-picked markets.

We need your help! If you would like to continue to experience the pick-your-own environment that we have created for you, we need help with both educating others and preventing this behavior! So, we ask you, our loyal customers, to help us with this! These trees are your trees, this fruit is your fruit! If you want to enjoy this fruit, please help us protect it for you to enjoy season after season! Feel free to kindly remind others who may be picking from an unflagged tree about our "No Flag, No Pick" rule.

Thank you so much for your help.

First Time Visitors!

If you are coming out to visit our orchard for the first time or just need a refresher, here are a few things you should know!

Picking:

• Our picking guideline is NO FLAG, NO PICK. We will identify trees with fruit ready for picking by tying a ribbon flag to the end of a branch. Please do not pick fruit from any other trees even if it looks ripe.
• Picking 101 - the proper way to pick tree fruit is to twist gently and lift up - do not pull down on the fruit or you will damage the fruit and the tree.
• Many of our trees and plants are very young. To keep them safe and healthy so you can enjoy picking from them in the future, please do not touch them unless you have been taken there to pick.

Payment:

• We take cash and checks payable to Wagon Wheel Orchard.

Parking:

• There is only one entrance and exit to the orchard – this is the gravel drive located just to the south of the big Wagon Wheel Orchard sign. Please do not pull into any other gravel drives nearby as they are private property.
• Parking does not open until the orchard opens. Please do not park or stop your vehicle on the 2-lane county road in front of our orchard waiting for us to open. If you arrive early, we ask that you drive around the block until we open the lot.
• Park in front of the multi-colored flags in the gravel parking area first.
• Parking is limited so please park to allow as many vehicles in as possible.
• If the gravel parking area is full, you may park in the overflow grass lot designated by the multi-colored flags.

Hay Rack Rides:

• The hay rack will be operating when we are properly staffed to take you to the fruit trees in the back, to tour the orchard, and to take you to the pond. There is no guarantee that we will be operating the hay rack at any given time.
• Please be prepared to walk to and from the back orchard (1/3 mile or about 7-10 minutes one way) if you don't want to wait. If you have children, we suggest you bring a wagon!

Gourd Maze:

• Enjoy the gourd maze during your tour of the back orchard but please do not touch any plant growing at the base of the maze walls - these are the gourd plants that give the gourd maze its name.

The Trading Post:

• The Trading Post will be open with our famous slushies, honey straws, & seasonal produce.

Porta Potty:

• We have one porta-potty with hand sanitizer located in the front orchard by the parking.

Working Farm:

• Equipment, implements and supplies may be laying about since we are a working farm. Please do not disturb.

Neighbors:

• We do have neighbors and ask that you respect their privacy and property.
• Enjoy watching the horses on the neighboring property. Please do not feed them. They do not belong to us and are not ours to feed.

Animals:

• We have goats, ducks & chickens!
• Our goats love to be fed!
• Our chickens are for laying eggs. We are supporting the older ones in their quest to become ugliest chicken at the JoCo Fair. There is nothing wrong with them, they are just molting and are supposed to look that way.
• Our catfish in the back pond love to be fed!

We appreciate all of your continued support as we work to create a fun, family-friendly orchard!

Whew...the freeze wasn't so bad afterall!

The tree in the photo in the prior post (the one covered in all that ice!) actually has some very nice apples on it! The ice seemed to protect the blossoms from the much colder temperatures that followed! Whew!

Looks like the freeze got to the cherries and the early peaches, so opening day will have to wait till August 1! The frost naturally thinned the rest of the peaches and the apples so we are expecting a healthy crop of larger fruit than last year! The fewer the fruit on the tree, the larger the fruit!

We have been busy pruning and preparing our grounds for your visit! The ducks, chickens and goats are all doing well - the chickens are producing lots of eggs just for you! Don't forget to ask for them when you check out!

We are excited to bring back our famous Peach Slushies and welcome back Prairie Fire BBQ who will be here every Saturday and Sunday with their award winning selections featuring my favorite "Axel Grease" sauce!

As a licensed live plant dealer, we have stepped up our custom bench grafting, including heirloom varieties and many popular favorites. We will have many here for you take home and plant on your own property this season. We are also taking orders for Spring 2010. Just send us an email or call with your order and Rick will graft it just for you to pick up and plant next Spring.

Where's Spring?

OK...So, you may be wondering what all this crazy April weather is doing to our trees! We are wondering, too! It is always hard to tell what the full impact of the crazy weather is until a few weeks later. If a tree is in bloom when it freezes, the bloom can die and no fruit will form where that bloom was. If a tree is in bloom but the temperature is below 41 degrees, it is too cold for the bees to come out of their hives to effectively pollinate the blossoms. Some bees will make short trips out of the hive and the wind and other flying insects may pollinate the blossoms but the tree will likely produce less fruit than it is capable of!

So that being said...before the snow and ice from last week, our peaches were in full bloom and we have observed some damage but not complete damage, which is good. Only a few Cherry varieties have bloomed, the majority have not, which is good. Pears have all bloomed, which is not good. As far as the apples go, of the hundreds of apple varieties that we have, only a few types have bloomed (like the one in this photo we took the morning after the storm with the beautiful blooms encrusted in ice), which is good. Now, we have temperatures lingering near freezing which has stalled the development of anything else yet to blossom. We are pleased to say that we are focusing most of our new tree plantings and graftings on late-bloom types...which is good!

A White Winter!

One of the most common questions asked is:

Why are the trunks of the trees painted white?

Yes, it does look pretty cool & they are easier to see at night but there is actually a reason that has to do with the health of our trees.

As many of you know, Kansas weather can be strange - we have snow one day & you can go outside in shorts the next. In the winter, our young trees get “sun scald”. When the sun warms up the south side of a tree in the winter, it can melt the sap inside. This sap then freezes when it gets cold again at night or the next cold day. Just like potholes in the street, this repeated process can crack the trunk of the tree. We paint the tree trunks white so less of the sun’s energy is absorbed by the trunk, reducing the sun scald effect.

Painting the trees is a fun family affair as you can see from the picture of the kids painting peach trees. We put on some old white T-shirts and let the paint fly.

If you’d like to try this yourself we recommend that you use inexpensive “barn paint” & mix it 50-50 with water. This kind of paint can easily be purchased at almost any hardware store or paint retailer. We’ve found that this gets the best results & is easiest to apply. Cheap brushes are a must as the trees coarse texture will damage the bristles. We pick up 2 inch wide brushes for a buck or two.

THANK YOU!

Thank you to everyone who made our first season open to the public a huge success! We love what we do and we love sharing it with you!

Grandma & Great Grandma, Doris Greuel, was here from Macomb, IL, once again! This time, to hang the closed sign on the very last day of our very first season!

If you visited us this season (once, twice, or even more!), we want to hear from you! Tell us your stories of your visit to our ourchard! Share your experiences with us! We may even publish your story on our website! Email us at WagonWheelMail@aol.com.

Check back here often as we will share with you the changes we are making, big & small, and all of the things we will do over the next 8 months to care for the trees that will bring you the fruit you love next season! HAPPY TRAILS!