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Focus on Coop Suppliers: Hicks Fruit Farmby Suzanne Fisher Located
about five minutes off I-87, halfway between Forty of
those acres are in apple trees, which offer 27 different varieties that
are
sold not only at Honest Weight, but also at grocery stores throughout
the
Capital Region. (Hicks Farm does not have “U-pick” fruit available.) This fall,
Honest Weight will have the Hicks’s pumpkins for sale. They grow both
pie and
jack-o-lantern types. Both will be no-spray because Hicks “just didn’t
have
time to spray them this year.” Hicks’s apples will also be available at
Honest
Weight as “conventionally grown.” Because the apples must be perfect
for
grocery stores to carry them, he finds it necessary to spray them.
Hicks
practices a minimal spray program, targeting only the pests they
actually have
with a spray that is not broad-spectrum. That way, they can save the
beneficial
insects while eliminating those that will damage the crop. In addition
to
apples and pumpkins, Honest Weight also sells Hicks’s asparagus in the
spring
and strawberries, blueberries and raspberries in the summer. The
berries are
usually no-spray. The Hicks’s pears, plums and (sometimes) peaches are
also available
at Honest Weight, in season. This is not all that the Hicks Farm
offers. They
also have cherries in the summer — and when I stopped by, their farm
stand had
eggplants available. Signs with prices for corn and other offerings
were still
posted. One gets the impression that there really is a little bit of
everything
grown there. Whether you
are shopping to support local farmers for culinary, health, political,
economic
or ecological reasons, buying produce from the Hicks Fruit Farm makes
sense.
You will also become part of a tradition — both at Honest Weight, where
his
produce has been offered for years, and on his farm, which has been
supported
by the surrounding community for even longer. Hicks Fruit
Farm is located in Rexford, |
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