Peace at the cider press: A fall without U-pick
The golden grass and orange trees lining the winding highway in Paradise, Utah make up a classic autumn scene. Just off the road, rows of apple trees and flowers cover a plot of private property.
Unfortunately for the owners, it’s become the perfect fall photo op.
Located on less than five acres, Paradise Valley Orchard has been offering U-pick apples since the 1990s. When the current owners, a self-described hippie couple originally from Montana, purchased it 11 years ago, the small orchard would see 100 people on a good day.
Now, there are days in which 1,000 people come through — and Lorin and Ali Harrison say they’re struggling to keep up.
“Pretty soon it’s like you’ve actually got people, like, walking in your house. They’re like, ‘Oh, I just wanted to see if there was a bathroom in here. I just wanted to see the living room.’ You’re like, ‘What?’” Lorin says. “The privacy thing—it’s like it totally disappeared all of a sudden.”
Ali Harrison says she and Lorin have done little to market the orchard.
“Oh my goodness, I’m terrible. I barely know what Instagram is,” Ali says. “I barely know how to use it and I would post a picture every six months, so it wasn’t even because I was posting and tagging and like trying to drum up all this business.”
No, Paradise Valley didn’t explode in popularity on purpose. It was customers coming and posting pictures on their personal social media accounts that caused the orchard to go from hidden gem to destination location.
But not this year.
In the wake of COVID-19, the Harrisons decided to close the orchard to U-pick for the season. Consequently, they’ve gotten a break from cars clogging their driveway and people invading their home each week. Normally, the loss of thousands of customers could lead to financial devastation for a small business.
But the Harrisons never put all their apples in one basket. In fact, the U-pick apple orchard is merely a side gig. One that turned into a major growing pain.
This break has allowed the couple to devote more time to their two main businesses: their flower farm and cider press.
While the flower farm contributes greatly to the Harrisons’ financial success, especially in the summer, the cider press steals the show in Cache County.
The press is located in a large barn at the orchard. Customers from all over Cache Valley come to get their apples turned into smooth, unpasteurized cider. Right as one batch of apples is pressed and getting bottled, another customer is pulling up to unload their bushels. This goes on, back-to-back, all day long.
And if customers want a time slot to come press their apples, they better plan ahead.
“It’s popular,” customer Kerrilee Palmer says. “And we know it’s popular, so we plan for it to be popular.”
Palmer and her husband bring in their Macintosh and Pink Lady apples each year they get a good crop. They drive from their home in Clarkston, on the opposite side of Cache Valley, to get cider made at Paradise Valley.
“It’s worth it,” Palmer says. “And the quality we get out of our own stuff with her pressing is second to none.”
Palmer is one of many customers who chooses the Harrisons’ cider press because of the quality.
The fresh-pressed juice is so good that some customers are nearly addicted to it. They press enough of their apples to get them through to next years’ harvest.
“There is nothing like the real stuff,” customer Todd Ballard says. “This is the best place ever.”
The Ballards, like most of the cider press customers, have been coming to the Harrisons’ cider press for years. The fresh juice has become the family’s drink of choice. They even have a special deal with the Harrisons, trading pork from their pig farm for cider.
Ballard stands at the trunk of his van counting up cider jugs and calculating how many cuts of bacon and pork chops the transaction totals out to. As Ali waits for the barter math to work itself out, Lorin and two employees are already moving apples in from the next customer.
This is all enough to keep them and their small staff busy.
Lorin finds it hard to believe that last year they were doing all of this while dealing with hundreds of people picking and buying apples, too. Some days, he says, the orchard is so busy their cider press appointments can’t even access the property — as many as 30 cars are parked on the highway at one time.
Between the press and U-pick, and the flower farm in Blackfoot, Idaho, Lorin says there is no balance.
“We just wing it,” he says. “And we do what we can at each place, as we get there, and we’ve been compiling plans and thinking of ideas. And as things quiet down, we’re hoping that we can actually implement some of these plans and ideas.”
They want to invest more in the flower farm. And hire more staff. And move more of their products into resort towns.
But, for now, the Harrisons are staying busy and enjoying some of the peace that has come from not having U-pick this season.
The extra time, space and peace gives them the ability to notice things that have always been on the farm, but they sometimes miss. The golden grass. The orange trees.
A classic autumn scene all their own.