November's Producer Spotlight is on Paula Charnock from Hillside Harvest and Thornbrook Orchard. A 4th generation orchardist, Paula and her family bring decades of experience when it comes to producing the amazing quality of apples, cherries, pears, stonefruit and berries that we all love. I sat down with Paula recently to find out about the history of her family in orcharding, the upcoming pick your own season (keep reading for the best times to go pick) and the importance of eating fresh produce in season.
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Hi Paula, so can you tell me about how your family came to start orcharding in Orange?
So the history is I'm a 4th generation orchardist, my grandparents bought the first orchard Thornbrook Orchard in Nashdale in 1947, but my great grandfather was farming out here before that. My grandfather turned 21 during the Great Depression and was fired from his job at the Arnotts Biscuit factory in Sydney. He was the eldest son and his father was a merchant seaman away at sea, sho he had to find a way to support the family. He ended up riding over the Blue Mountains on his push bike with no gears, on gravel roads for 2-3 days to come out here to to pick cherries and fruit for the picking season. Out here he met my grandmother, got married, and the rest is history.
The first orchard was one he managed at a the top of Nancarrow Lane in Nashdale. Then in 1947 they bought Thornbrook Orchard but there wasn't an orchard on it. They eventually moved there in the 60's and planted the orchard, but then had to wait another 5-10 years before the trees were ready to go and he could stop managing the Nancarrow Lane farm. Our family still run Thornbrook, my brother-in-law Paul lives there and we have fruit trees and pick your own cherries out there.
View of Mt Canobolas from Thornbrook Orchard.
So after my grandfather, Dad was an orchardist as well. In 2016 he was getting to retirement age and sent out to all the family asking if anyone wanted to take over the orchard, or else he would start winding down the orchard and not plant any more. I was living with my family down in Wagga Wagga then, and I'd always wanted to come back and take over, so we moved back and Paul and I started learning from Dad for the next few years.
Dad died in 2019 and Covid hit in 2020 so there was a real rough patch there for a while. We'd just started doing the Canberra Markets, since Mum and Dad had stopped sending fruit to Sydney about 30 years ago to instead focus on farmers markets and pick your own to get better returns for the fruit. But when Covid hit we were locked out of Canberra for 13 weeks. We had 2 families with no income for 13 weeks other than selling a bit of fruit out of the end of our shed. That was really tough to get through and got us thinking. We decided we had to plant more apples to keep up with demand and find a way to control our supply chain better. When Hillside came up for sale it was perfect, it already had established apples and the beautiful shop too so we could control everything from the tree to the customer. My husband Allen's a school teacher and was ready for something else so he came on to help us manage Thornbrook, Hillside and Mum's orchard too. Now we've got the farmers markets back, and the shop and pick your own which is a big part for us.
Fresh fruit for sale at Hillside Harvest, Borenore.
So how was the transition to life back on the orchard and then from the orchard to running the shop?
I'd worked previously at DPI so there was some knowledge from that and background knowledge from growing up on the orchard, but applying it on the ground was a whole different ball game! It was great having Dad their to learn off when we first came back. The orcharding community in Orange is also so helpful. It's pretty small and everyone gets on really well and helps out. We've got lots of people who have been doing it for years and generations who are always happy to come have a look at any problems we've got and give us their recommendations. It's great everyone gets on and chats when we have community get togethers and everyone's just looking to see everyone else go well.
After that the transition to running the shop was a massive change! The shop is more on me, and while I feel like I've got the hang of it now, the first 6 months was a steep learning curve. We were constantly running out of stock and not knowing what to do. We took over the shop on Christmas Eve and in the middle of cherry season so we were flat strap right from the start. The first person I hired I just asked "Can you make coffee and can you start on Boxing Day", she could and I hired her straight away!
How were stress levels in those first few months running the shop?
Very high! In the shop it was high but managing the orchard and pick your own was fine, I'd done that before and it was easy, I'd grown up with it and I was comfortable and confident in my decisions, in the shop I was really learning on the fly.
Ok so from that with pick your own, what's coming in to season now and whats coming up?
So pick your own will start in mid to late November, we're the lowest orchard in the district here so we're the first to have cherries ready. We have a few varieties to have some early, mid and late season cherries and we'll finish up around Christmas time, then after that is apricots. The later cherries are a little lighter on this year than previous years but the apricots are amazing, there's millions of them! We've had some light seasons for apricots the last couple of years but this year is looking great. They're my favourite so I couldn't be happier, every year I make myself sick on apricots I love them that much. It's hard to leave them because when you're picking the ones that are best to pick are a couple of days away from being best to eat, but then if they're good to eat now and on the tree it's really hard to just leave them there.
So what is best for eating straight away and what's best for picking for later?
Well apricots and stonefruit ripen from the inside out, so they're very delicate and prone to dropping. You have to pick them a couple of days before when would be the perfect time to eat, so they ripen in the bucket. Cherries on the other hand don't continue to ripen off the tree, you pick the ones that are ready to eat.
So then after the apricots in January we'll have our boysenberries and other berries, then the nectarines and peaches, and by the end of Jan the plums will start. Then in mid February we'll have apples and pears starting. The stonefruit will finish fairly quickly but the plums will be around into April and apples and pears will finish around the end of May.
Wow so it's a really short season!?
Yeah especially for things like peaches and nectarines the season is about 3 months, and apricots and cherries is even less, around about 6 weeks depending on the variety, and apples and pears go a bit longer. The main apple varieties we've got are Royal Gala's and they come in around mid Feb, and the last to come in are the Pink Lady's that are ready to pick around the end of May. They all need different amounts of time, the pink lady's are the first to flower and the last to fruit, so they all need different things.
That's really interesting, that's a great guide for people for when to come out and get the freshest fruit.
So in a bit of a different direction now, how have you seen the Orange region change since you were little and since your grandparents got started?
There's been a few big changes since my grandparents got started, one is the average size of the farms, back in the 60's when my grandparents bought Thornbrook the average farm was 65-75 acres and that was enough to fully support 1-2 families.
That's been one big change, another is how the fruit is handled and stored, back when my grandfather started they only used to pick what was going to market that week since their wasn't any refrigeration. It was all picked, packed and taken down to the train in little half crates that could be carried by hand. The invention of the forklift changed all that so now everything can be done in bulk.
With that was the building of cool stores so things last much longer, now they can pick apples and store them up to 12 months, as opposed to a few weeks before. They take the oxygen out of the cool stores and replace it with nitrogen so you can get apples all year round. Peaches and nectarines don't survive that though, they come out and go off within a day if stored like that, since they're not really designed to cope with it. The newer varities of fruit are all designed to have a long storage life, so older varities of apples like Jonothan apples are the same, they don't store well, but new varieties like Pink Lady's, Fuji's, Jazz and Kanzi's are designed for storage.
So then is it still really important to eat seasonally for the best freshness and quality despite the improvement in storage?
Absolutely! It only comes out of storage as good as it goes in, it doesn't get any better, its basically on pause. So you can get apples all year round but when its peach season eat them! Grab a peach or a plum or a nectarine rather than an apple. I'm always shocked when I go to markets and people will ask for Pink Lady's I picked in April over Royal Gala's that were picked yesterday, its important to keep trying new varieties that are in season.
Yeah because some people have had bad experiences with different varieties of apples in lunch boxes as a kid and don't trust them now.
Exactly! Delicious' are a prime example for that, they're actually one of the nicest you'll ever eat if it's a fresh one and it's stored properly, but in the 80's they were the largest grown variety and the storage wasn't very good so everyone's had a floury, awful Delicious, that's where the perception is from. If you get them fresh or pick your own they'll be the best you ever tried.
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That was Paula from Hillside Harvest tell us all about when is best to get the freshest, highest quality fruit you can, as well as how her family got started in orcharding in Orange and how it's changed since they did. Head over to the shop to see what Paula's got in right now and keep your eyes peeled for the freshest quality fruit coming up on the site in the next few weeks!
Cheers, Will ✌️