by Gary Mount

Each year when I write for this issue of our quarterly Terhune Orchards News I am excited and happy. I have written about spring before — probably many times — but each year is a new beginning. Winter is coming to an end; the days are longer and our trees, bushes and vines are beginning to wake up.

We have been pruning since November — all winter long. Every tree — apple, peach, cherry, and pear, every bush — blueberry and blackberry and every vine — table grape and wine grape, gets pruned every year. Apples are done first and the others follow. When pruning we adjust plant size, remove dead, unproductive, or broken branches and space out the remaining limbs so they receive the right amount of sunlight. With such an extensive list of work to do, the first pruning job each year is training those doing the work. We have 30,000 apple trees, 2,000 Peach trees, 2,000 cherry trees, 7,000 grapevines and 3,000 blueberry bushes to get through each year and they have to be done right!

Last fall I purchased a large flat screen smart TV to install on one wall of our winery and I show training videos (usually from YouTube). It works great. I have even been able to find videos in other languages — Spanish for example — and am able to get videos made in major growing areas such as Washington State.

As I write, it is the end of February. Apples are finished. Peaches are nearly done. Cherries are underway and we are about to start grapes and blueberries. Spring is almost here. Another job on our “To Do List” each year is to plan for the future of the business of Terhune Orchards. We are so pleased that our daughters Reuwai and Tannwen are committed to being the next farmers at Terhune. I am the 9th-generation of my family to farm in this area; they will be the 10th. Doing such planning is not easy but New Jersey’s farmland preservation program helps a lot. We farm 5 separate farms of 250 acres altogether and all of the land is restricted to farming — permanently preserved.

New Jersey’s preservation program was created in the early 1980s. I had involvement in that then and for the next 20 to 25 years. I am glad that I did. As farmers operating on preserved land, our daughters will be able to see a permanence in their future. Now our job is to get the plans written down on paper.

We recently surprised our neighbors this winter by installing three more of the “Preserved Farmland” signs — these on our three farms on Van Kirk Rd. You might have seen this type of sign around the state, including the one on our home farm on Cold Soil Rd. The preservation on Van Kirk Road is not new — just the signs. I think that not everyone knew. Putting the signs up is a way we have of saying thank you. The preservation program is funded by tax dollars and we are grateful to our state, county, and town for thinking that preservation is a good idea. We think so, too.