Category Archives: Agroforestry

Agroforestry, American Persimmons, Chestnuts, Uncategorized, You-Pick

You-Pick at Red Fern Farm 2023

Our you-pick is still by reservation only. You can call a day ahead, 319-729-5905,  to see if there is an opening or schedule your harvest-day, weeks or even months in advance. We have lots of openings on weekdays, but weekends fill up quickly. Picking hours are 1:00 PM until sunset.

The Red Shed (or check out shed)

$20 minimum checkout. This $20 covers the time it takes us to show your group around the groves, train you on what and how to harvest and taste samples of fruit and nuts. If you are harvesting something like Aronia or hazels we will take the $20 ahead of time and you get to pick all you want. No weigh out or further transaction needed. If you are getting multiple items we may say $20 covers it all or take the time to weigh you out (if we suspect it would come to more than $20). Each checkout transaction has a $20 minimum.

Persimmon Princess

What to Expect: You can usually drive up and park close to the spot you will be harvesting. We have clean latrines, hand washing stations and picnic tables at the main parking areas. This is a safe area for children, but no dogs or cats are allowed (food security issues).

The grass will be mowed, but not as fine as a lawn. Be sure to wear sturdy shoes, prickly chestnut burs are scattered on the ground. Our orchards are in a rural setting, close to “wild” timber. Bring bug repellent. Your children are welcome to observe and catch the frogs, insects, spiders and snakes they encounter.  Please ask your children to be gentle and release all creatures before you leave the groves.

We have maps and directions are available to email or call if you need help finding us. Google Maps knows us as Red Fern Farm, You-Pick. Call 319-729-5905 to make a reservation. We are outside a lot September – October so be ready to leave a message.

Cornelian Cherries: (Almost all gone 9/18/23) Cornelian cherries are usually ready around mid-August and continue to mid-September. Almost all our Cornelian cherry bushes are now grafted and provide large, tasty fruit.

We sell them at $3.00/pound for you-pick. We recommend bringing a gathering cloth to spread under the bushes. The ripe berries are soft and sweet. Under ripe ones are firmer and very tart. They will continue to ripen after picking. We have none available already picked (the family eats them up too fast).

Aronia Berries:  Our Aronia bushes continue to be more and more shaded out by the surrounding canopy trees. The Aronia season is usually short and in early September; about in the middle of Hazel season. There is no charge for Aronia berries (see note on $20 checkout minimum above). Call for more information.

Oleg Polukeyev harvesting hazels.

Hazels: Hazel season usually goes from early September to late September. Hazels are  $2.00/pound for un-husked  clusters or $3.00/pound husked nuts for you-pick. Bring bags, buckets or boxes to collect into. It can take 30 minutes for one adult to pick clean one 10 foot tall bush and gather about 1-3 gallons of hazel clusters. One gallon of un-husked nuts (an ice cream bucket full) will yield about one pound of husked nuts. If you are interested in saving hazels for seed nuts, check out our  Hazel Seed Nut Planting Instructions sheet.

Pawpaws:  Usually the season runs mid-September to the first hard freeze in October. Weather has hurt the 2023 pawpaw crop. We think we will only have 600 pounds instead of 2,000 – 4,000 pounds. Kathy has stopped taking harvest reservations for pawpaw (August 14). There may be fruit available to seed collectors at $10/pound. We may open up the culinary harvest again if our estimate is wrong. We have started a waiting list.

Pawpaws are $3.50/pound when you pick them, $6.00/pound when we pick them. Marked pawpaws (Shensus) are $10.00/pound. Bring buckets, boxes or crates. Ripe pawpaws are very soft and should be stacked only 2 deep or less. Weekends are very popular, so call early to reserve a time slot. Tuesday – Thursday is an excellent time to have the pawpaw patch to yourself. It only takes about 15 minutes to get 5 – 10 pounds of pawpaws. Late afternoon is the best time to pick, but ripe pawpaws will be available all day (after 1:00 pm). Recipes are available. There is no minimum or maximum for the amount of pawpaws you pick. We do ask you only pick what you plan to take home.
We have many grafted trees. If you want to see what grafted variety you like the flavor of best, bring a black sharpie with you. You can write on the outside of the pawpaw what the variety it is. When you eat it later, you can compare it with other varieties.

American Persimmon: Season usually runs mid-September to the end of October.  Price is $2.50/pound when you pick them, $3.50/pound when we pick them. The Persimmons are very soft when ripe. They should not be piled deeply in your gathering container. Bring bags, buckets or boxes to collect into.
They can be gathered from the ground or picked from the tree. Orange but slightly under ripe persimmons are very astringent, but will ripen off the tree. We will offer advice on judging ripeness of persimmons.

Asian Pears: Season runs mid-September to late October. The Korean Giants will ripen around October 15. The Asian pear crop looks good this year, but Kathy has stopped taking harvest reservations for Asian pear (September 10). Feel free to taste sample any fallen fruit to find a tree whose flavor you enjoy. Asian pears are available at $3.00/pound when you pick them, $4.00/pound when we pick.

Heartnuts:  A late, hard freeze damaged several heartnut trees and killed others. If we had any, these delicious, high-fat nuts would be available at two different rates. If you husk the nut so that you have mostly just the heartnut, they are $5/pound. If you leave the green, moist husk on, they are $3/pound (we know you don’t want to eat the husk).

Chestnut harvesters, October 4, 2022

Chestnut: The season usually runs about mid-September to mid-October, but the trees are in charge and they decide when they will start dropping their nuts. Kathy has stopped taking harvest reservations for chestnuts (September 10). We can put your name on a waiting list of give you the names of other farmers who allow you-pick for chestnuts.

Harvest may continue to late October or the first hard freeze (below 25 degrees) We make the best guesses we can based on weather. Hot, windy days make more chestnuts fall to the ground. Chestnuts start dropping each day around 1:00 pm and hit their peak around 3:00 pm.

Reservations to harvest chestnuts for eating start at 1:00 pm each day. We will set you up in a grove of trees depending on how many pounds of chestnuts you hope to harvest and how many people are in your group. We provide buckets and a tool called a nut wizard. Watch a Nut Wizard in action.

Over 125 pounds of chestnuts.

We will be charging $4.25/pound for nuts harvested on Saturdays or Sundays. Chestnuts harvested Monday – Friday only cost $3.75/pound. We have a waiting list of 150 families and groups who can only come on weekends. We have lots of openings for week days.

Chestnut Seed nut harvest starts at dawn each day and goes up to noon. Chestnuts harvested at this time are $10.00/pound and are used to grow more trees. Harvesters of seed nuts can harvest from any area, any grafted or seedling tree. Maps will be provided showing location of named trees.

If you don’t want all the nuts, we will pay you $1.00 for each pound of chestnuts you gather and don’t take home.
Be sure to bring water and snacks. It takes about one hour for one adult to gather 25 pounds of nuts.

Agroforestry, Chestnuts, Pawpaws

Trees for 2023

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We opened our website to tree orders on November 25 (Black Friday). By Saturday one third of all our trees had been reserved. We are now down to only around 150 trees not spoken for. We do have a waiting list started if you really need trees from our farm, but you do have other good choices.

We are in the process of turning over our nursery business to Canopy Farm Management (canopyfm.com/nursery/ ). Canopy has been purchasing our seed nuts and seed from other excellent sources. They are utilizing our good tree growing practices and developing some of their own. As we have reduced our selection, they are expanding. They also offer bare-rooted trees for shipping. Be sure to check them out.

Tom has also started a consultation service to help with your tree planting plans.

Here are a few things to keep in mind when ordering trees from us:

Trees on their way to the state of Louisiana.

We Do Not Ship Trees. You will not be refunded in full if you expect shipping of any trees. All trees ordered will need to be picked from our farm in southeast Iowa by August 31 (June 30 for small potted chestnuts, see below).

We offer limited Quantity Discounts on Chestnuts. We offer quantity discounts when you order the same variety of chestnuts. You cannot combine orders of different varieties to reach a discount price. Example 60 Mossbarger and 60 Qing would cost you the 10 – 99 price for each, not the 100 or more price for each.

We Do NOT refund your deposit after January 15. We require a 25% deposit to reserve your trees. You have two weeks after placing your order to get this deposit to our farm. This deposit is lost if you cancel your order after January 15. We understand stuff happens. If you need to cancel your order after January 15, call or email us and explain. If we can find a new purchaser for your trees, we may only charge a 10% restocking fee. The earlier you cancel or change the order, the easier it is for us to find new customers and the less we will charge you for changing your order.

Chestnut Seedlings. We have seedlings of some of the very best cultivars available. Although “open pollinated”, their most likely pollinizers are other good Chinese cultivars. This greatly increases the likelihood that the seedlings will be as good or even better than their parents. We fully expect that many new, superior cultivars will result form these seedlings.
The varieties we have for sell below have brief descriptions of the parent trees. These seedling trees are for pick up early summer through August 31.

Small and Medium sized pots used to grow chestnut trees at Red Fern Farm.

Chestnut Seedling Pots. We check each tree to make sure we see roots emerging from the bottom of their pot to ensure good root development before we release the tree from our nursery. All are trees are grown in post designed to avoid root spiraling so none of our trees become “root bound”.
Small potted chestnuts – These pots are 9 inches tall for excellent root development, but are only 2 7/8 x 2 7/8 inches square at the top. This allows the roots to fill in the smaller pots sooner and thus the trees will be ready to leave our nursery earlier in the summer. It also means the pots will dry out quicker and the tops can quickly out grow the capacity of the pots. The chestnut trees grown in these smaller pots will need to be picked up from our nursery by June 31.

Medium potted chestnuts – These are our standard size pots. They are 4 x 4 inches square at the top and 9 inches tall. It takes longer for the tree roots to fill these pots. Because of the larger size, these potted trees do not dehydrate as quickly as the smaller pots. Trees grown in these pots do not need to be picked up from our nursery until August 31.

Pawpaw seedlings. We no longer sell grafted or bare-root pawpaws. Because of the life cycle of the pawpaw, you will get more fruit from your pawpaw PATCH by growing superior seedlings and allowing their root sprouts to fruit (see Pawpaw Special Instructions). We offer three sizes of pawpaw that are based on the pot size and thus root development. We also offer two strains of pawpaw. Shensus Pawpaw Seedlings are from a semi-controlled cross of Shenandoah and Susquehanna. Varietal Pawpaw Seedlings are seedlings are open pollinated with grafted varieties such as  ‘NC1’, ‘Pennsylvania Golden’, ‘Taytwo’, ‘Prolific’,  ‘Shenandoah’, ‘Susquehanna’ and ‘Overlease’  as their mother tree.

Agroforestry, Chestnuts, You-Pick

You-Pick at Red Fern Farm 2022

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You-pick at Red Fern Farm is done for 2022. Below you can see information about our you-pick.

Our you-pick is still by reservation only. This helps to guarantee lots of social distancing while you harvest. You can call a day ahead, 319-729-5905,  to see if there is an opening or schedule your harvest-day weeks in advance. We have lots of openings on weekdays, but weekends fill up quickly. Picking hours are 1:00 PM until sunset.

We are continuing the $20 minimum. This $20 covers the time it takes us to show you around the groves, train you on what and how to harvest and taste samples of fruit and nuts. After paying the $20, you don’t have to buy anything at our farm. If you do make a purchase, the first $20 is already paid for. The $20 will cover a car with up to 3 adults or it is $20 minimum at the checkout. Each checkout transaction has a $20 minimum.

What to Expect: You can usually drive up and park close to the spot you will be harvesting. We have clean latrines, hand washing stations and picnic tables at the main parking areas. This is a safe area for children, but no dogs or cats are allowed (food security issues).

The grass will be mowed, but not as fine as a lawn. Be sure to wear sturdy shoes, prickly chestnut burs are scattered on the ground. Our orchards are in a rural setting, close to “wild” timber. Bring bug repellent. Your children are welcome to observe and catch the frogs, insects, spiders and snakes they encounter.  Please ask your children to be gentle and release all creatures before you leave the groves.

We have maps and directions are available to email or call if you need help finding us. Call 319-729-5905 to make a reservation. We are outside a lot September – October so be ready to leave a message.

Ripe Cornelian cherries from a grafted bush.

Cornelian Cherries: (Done for 2022) Cornelian cherries are usually ready around mid-August and continue to mid-September. Our 2022 season finished up September 3 as a record amount was harvested early.

We sell them at $2.00/pound for you-pick. We recommend bringing a gathering cloth to spread under the bushes. The ripe berries are soft and sweet. Under ripe ones are firmer and very tart. They will continue to ripen after picking. We have none available already picked (the family eats them up too fast).

Aronia Berries:  (Done for 2022) . Our Aronia bushes continue to be more and more shaded out by the surrounding canopy trees. The Aronia season is usually short and in early September; about in the middle of Hazel season. There is no charge for Aronia berries (see note on $20 visitation minimum above). Call for more information.

Hazels: (Done for 2022) Hazel season usually goes from early September to late September. Hazels are  $1.00/pound for un-husked  clusters or $2.00/pound husked nuts for you-pick. Bring bags, buckets or boxes to collect into. It can take 30 minutes for one adult to pick clean one 10 foot tall bush and gather about 1-3 gallons of hazel clusters. One gallon of un-husked nuts (an ice cream bucket full) will yield about one pound of husked nuts. If you are interested in saving hazels for seed nuts, check out our  Hazel Seed Nut Planting Instructions sheet.

Pawpaws:  We thought we would have a huge crop this year. Last year we harvested 2,600 pounds of fruit. We estimated 3,000 – 4,000 this year. Unfortunately it looks like the crop will be 1,300. We have over booked and over sold the pawpaws. We are taking no new appointments for 2022. Usually the season runs mid-September to the first hard freeze in October.

Pawpaws are $3.50/pound when you pick them, $6.00/pound when we pick them. Bring buckets, boxes or crates. Ripe pawpaws are very soft and should be stacked only 2 deep or less. Weekends are very popular, so call early to reserve a time slot. Tuesday – Thursday is an excellent time to have the pawpaw patch to yourself. It only takes about 15 minutes to get 5 – 10 pounds of pawpaws. Late afternoon is the best time to pick, but ripe pawpaws will be available all day (after 1:00 pm). Recipes are available. There is no minimum or maximum for the amount of pawpaws you pick. We do ask you only pick what you plan to take home.
We have many grafted trees. If you want to see what grafted variety you like the flavor of best, bring a black sharpie with you. You can write on the outside of the pawpaw what the variety it is. When you eat it later, you can compare it with other varieties.

American Persimmon: Season usually runs mid-September to the end of October.  Price is $2.50/pound when you pick them, $3.50/pound when we pick them. The Persimmons are very soft when ripe. They should not be piled deeply in your gathering container. Bring bags, buckets or boxes to collect into.
They can be gathered from the ground or picked from the tree. Orange but slightly under ripe persimmons are very astringent, but will ripen off the tree. We will offer advice on judging ripeness of persimmons.

Asian Pears: (No more harvest dates for 2022) Season runs mid-September to late October. Right now, October 8, there are no ripe pears. The Korean Giants will ripen around October 15. They are already book for harvest. The Asian pear crop looks good this year. Apprentices from the Savanna Institute helped to thin the fruit on the lower branches so the flavor should be improved this year. Feel free to taste sample any fallen fruit to find a tree whose flavor you enjoy. Wholesome Asian pears are available at $2.50/pound when you pick them, $3.50/pound when we pick.

Heartnuts:  (Pretty much finished for 2022) There are some heartnuts available this year. These delicious, high-fat nuts are available at two different rates. If you husk the nut so that you have mostly just the heartnut, they are $5/pound. If you leave the green, moist husk on, they are $3/pound (we know you don’t want to eat the husk).

Evin Tricic’s group of proud chestnut harvesters – early October, 2021.

Chestnut: The season usually runs about mid-September to mid-October, but the trees are in charge and they decide when they will start dropping their nuts. For 2022 the peak drop seems to be the second week of October. Harvest may continue to late October or the first hard freeze (below 25 degrees) We make the best guesses we can based on weather. Hot, windy days make more chestnuts fall to the ground. Chestnuts start dropping each day around 1:00 pm and hit their peak around 3:00 pm.

Reservations to harvest chestnuts for eating start at 1:00 pm each day. We will set you up in a grove of trees depending on how many pounds of chestnuts you hope to harvest and how many people are in your group. We provide buckets and a tool called a nut wizard. Watch a Nut Wizard in action.

We will be charging $3.50/pound for nuts harvested on Saturdays or Sundays. Chestnuts harvested Monday – Friday only cost $3.00/pound. We have a waiting list of 150 families and groups who can only come on weekends. We have lots of openings for week days.

Chestnut Seed nut harvest starts at dawn each day and goes up to 1:00 PM. Chestnuts harvested at this time are $10.00/pound and are used to grow more trees. Harvesters of seed nuts can harvest from any area, any grafted or seedling tree. Maps will be provided showing location of named trees.

If you don’t want all the nuts, we will pay you 75¢ for each pound of chestnuts you gather and don’t take home.
Be sure to bring water and snacks. It takes about one half hour for one adult to gather 25 pounds of nuts.

Agroforestry, Chestnuts

2021 Newsletter and catalog

Red Fern Farm 2021 Newsletter/CatalogDownload
Front page of Red Fern Farm 2021 Newsletter/Catalog

Our 2021 newsletter/catalog is hitting people’s email boxes today.  In the following week, paper copies will be in some folks mailboxes. Tom spent a fair amount of time on an article about how to select a good site for chestnut trees. You can read that article here rather than wait for your digital or paper copy of the newsletter. In the article he mentions the Web Soil Survey and the Woodland Suitability Recommendations (see below).

IowaWoodlandSuitability 2014Download

In the catalog part you will see what trees we hope to grow for 2021 and listings of scionwood that is available now. The Scion wood will close down for orders in February and March, depending on varieties.  We have already taken orders for half of all the chestnut trees we plan to grow in 2021. Please don’t wait too long to place an order for these potted trees. And remember, we don’t ship potted trees. You do have to come to our farm to pick them up.

We do have a few bare-rooted pawpaw and persimmon trees available this spring.  Oops. Now all the bare-rooted persimmon trees are gone. But we may have a few more as we cancel orders where we have not received a 25% deposit. Feel free to call or email if you think our website is out of date. (But our website is often more knowledgeable than we are). – Kathy Dice

Agroforestry, Chestnuts

Other Good Tree Nurseries

We know how frustrating it can be trying to find reasonably priced, good quality trees to start your own perennial venture. That was one reason we started our own tree nursery here at Red Fern Farm. We grew trees to meet our own needs. We ended up selling the surplus trees and eventually developed it into a full time business.

Unfortunately for our customers, we have been trying to scale back our nursery. We have been offering less variety and, despite selling out sooner and sooner each year, we do not expand.

The good news is there are now other nurseries offering good tree stock. If we are sold out of what you need or stopped supplying it, please check out these nurseries. Some may be much closer to you.

Route 9 Cooperative Located in Ohio and managed by the president of Northern Nut Growers, Greg Miller. They offer excellent genetics with their chestnuts trees. Do be cautious as they are in an area with Chestnut Gall Wasp and Chestnut weevils. https://route9cooperative.com/

Forrest Keeling located just north of Saint Louis in Missouri. They have an excellent selection of chestnuts, pawpaw, pecans, and persimmons. they use a growing technique, RPM, that will give you tall yearling chestnut trees. The chestnut trees can have a problem with spiraling roots, so try to get your chestnut trees as early in the summer as possible. They are also in an area with chestnut weevils. https://www.fknursery.com/

Honeyberry cluster on bush.
Honeyberry cluster on bush.

Honeyberry USA in Minnesota is an excellent source of good quality honeyberry plants or Haskap and information on this wonderful crop. This is the nursery where we order all our honeyberry plants from. They are very nice people to work with. http://www.honeyberryusa.com/

Oklahoma Chestnut, Fruit & Nut LLC with Steve Lucas. He is selling beautiful looking chestnuts down in Oklahoma. Reach out to him via his facebook page. An Oklahoma Chestnut, Fruit & Nut LLC

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is chestnut-seeds-jarred-768x1024.jpg
Photo from Ave Maria Nursery.

Ave Maria Acres in eastern Nebraska. This nursery is run by Jarred Dressman (who learned a lot while he interned on our farm). Along with chestnut seedlings and a varieties of other perennials, he has an incredible array of grafted apple trees available. https://www.avemariaacres.com/

Other nurseries we use for hard to find plants or seeds:

Burnt Ridge Nursery & Orchards, Onalaska, WA https://www.burntridgenursery.com/

Oikos Tree Crops, Kalamazoo, MI https://oikostreecrops.com/

Richters Herbs, Canada (seeds only) https://www.richters.com/

Raintree Nursery, Morton WA https://raintreenursery.com/

OneGreenWorld, Portland OR https://onegreenworld.com/

There are a lot of other fine nurseries, but these are the ones we are familiar with and can vouch for.

Agroforestry, Chestnuts

Chestnut Tree Seedlings for 2020

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The weather extremes of 2018 – 2019 in southeast Iowa will be affecting Red Fern Farm into 2020 as we deal with the shortage of good quality chestnut seed nuts for our nursery. Our chestnut trees were damaged by weather events and for the most part did not set a crop in 2019. As a result, we were not able to gather seed nuts from many of our own named varieties or any of their crosses (Red Fern Super, Shotgun, QingSu, BadgerQing, Giant Badger I or II, Large Badger). We purchased seed from other sources. As a result we will have a limited number of seedlings available from known grafted mother trees. These seedlings will have a price mark up to reflect their limited numbers.

We will have a cheaper option that includes what was sold to us as a “bulk” seed. We know the bulk seed came from 3 types of grafted mother trees: Peach, Qing and Kohr.

Placing seed chestnuts in a sprouting tray for overwintering.

As we create our seed trays, we will create an estimate of how many trees we will have available of each variety and list them as available for ordering on our website. You can then order your trees. You have the option of paying in full with a credit card on the website (requires an additional 3% fee to cover the credit card fees) or mailing a check. The check option includes no extra fees. The check option allows you to pay down a 25% deposit on the order. The deposit will hold your trees at our nursery until August 31.

We will have no bare-rooted chestnut trees available for shipping Spring of 2020. – Kathy Dice

Agroforestry, American Persimmons, Chestnuts, Heartnuts, Pawpaws, You-Pick

You-Pick at Red Fern Farm 2019 – $15 minimum

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You-Pick at Red Fern Farm has closed for 2019. Below is the information we posted for the season when it ran.

You-pick at Red Fern Farm is still by reservation only. You can call a day ahead to see if there is an opening or schedule your harvest day weeks in advance. We have lots of openings on weekdays, but weekends fill up quickly.

Red Shed - Customer checkout shed
Our new Red Shed – where we weigh out customers’ harvests.

New this year is a $15 minimum. This $15, paid when you first arrive, covers the time it takes us to show you around the groves, train you on what and how to harvest and taste samples of fruit and nuts. After paying the $15, you don’t have to buy anything at our farm. If you do make a purchase, the first $15 is already paid for. How cool is that? The $15 is per group. As an added bonus we will be utilizing our new “Red Shed” to weigh you out at the end of your harvest. No need to drive back to our house for your weigh out.

The weird weather from fall of 2018 into the spring of 2019 has caused severe damage in our groves. Some trees will take years to recover. Each crop has been affected differently. You will see notes below. We will not be able to host as many customers this year in the pawpaw patches and there will be NO Chestnut You-Pick.

Mother and son walk into food forest for you-Pick
Burnham Family starts a morning of You-pick

What to Expect: You can usually drive up and park close to the spot you will be harvesting. We have clean latrines, hand washing stations and picnic tables at each parking area. This is a safe area for children, but no dogs or cats are allowed (food security issues).

The grass will be mowed, but not as fine as a lawn. Be sure to wear sturdy shoes, prickly chestnut burs are scattered on the ground. Our orchards are in a rural setting, close to “wild” timber. Bring bug repellent. Your children are welcome to observe and catch  the frogs, insects, spiders and snakes they encounter.  Please ask your children to be gentle and release all creatures before you leave the groves.

Aronia Berries:  The Aronia bushes are loaded this year. The berries are available free for you-pick (see note on $15 visitation minimum above). They will hit the peak of ripeness during early September. We only have a few bushes still bearing fruit. They are located in the shade of chestnut and heartnut trees. Call for more information.

Hazels:  (Still available as of 9/29/19) A decent crop of Hazels are available. Hazels are available at $1.00/pound for un-husked  clusters or $2.00/pound husked nuts for you-pick. The season for hazels usually starts in late August and continues to mid-September. Hazels can be picked from the bushes or from the ground underneath. Bring bags, buckets or boxes to collect into. It can take 30 minutes for one adult to pick clean one 10 foot tall bush and gather about 1-3 gallons of hazel clusters. One gallon of un-husked nuts (an ice cream bucket full) will yield about one pound of husked nuts. If you are interested in saving hazels for seed nuts, we have free information available – just ask.

Three ripening Cornelian cherries on grafted bush.
Three ripening Cornelian cherries on grafted bush.

Cornelian Cherries: (Season is over for 2019) Cornelian Cherries are available at $2.00/pound for you-pick. The season has been mid-August to mid-September. We recommend bringing a gathering cloth to spread under the bushes. The ripe berries are soft and sweet. Under ripe they are firmer and very tart. They will continue to ripen after picking. We have none available already picked (the family eats them up too fast).

Pawpaws:  80% of the pawpaw flower buds froze off this past winter. There is a much smaller crop available for 2019 and it is ripening later. For 2019, the pawpaw season runs from late

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is Picking-pawpaws-cropped.jpg
Brandon Family members enjoying the pawpaw patch fall of 2018.

September to late October. Pawpaws are $3.00/pound when you pick them, $5.00/pound when we pick them. Bring buckets, boxes or crates. Ripe pawpaws are very soft and should not be stacked no more than 2 deep. Weekends are very popular, so call early to reserve a time slot. Tuesday – Thursday is an excellent time to have the pawpaw patch to yourself. It only takes about 15 minutes to get 5 – 10 pounds of pawpaws. Late afternoon is the best time to pick, but ripe pawpaws will be available all day. Recipes are available. There is no minimum or maximum for the amount of pawpaws you pick. We do ask you only pick what you plan to take home.
We have many grafted trees. If you want to see what grafted variety you like the flavor of best, bring a black sharpie with you. You can write on the outside of the pawpaw what the variety it is. When you eat it later, you can compare it with other varieties.

American Persimmon: Persimmons are available, but took a hit from the past weather. We have a smaller crop, but still plenty for our customers at $2.00/pound when you pick them, $3.00/pound when we pick them. The 2019 season starts in late September and continues to mid-October. Persimmons are very soft when ripe. They should not be piled deeply in your gathering container. Bring bags, buckets or boxes to collect into.
They can be gathered from the ground or picked from the tree. Slightly under ripe persimmons are very astringent. Only orange persimmons will continue to ripen off the tree.

Heartnuts: Heartnuts got through the crazy weather just fine. Heartnuts are available at $2.00/pound for un-husked clusters or $4/pound without husks (they husk very easily) for you-pick. The season for heartnuts starts in early September and continues to mid-October. The nuts are gathered from the ground under the trees. 

Asian Pears: The only Asian pears we will have this fall are Korean Giants that ripen in late October. The fruit of Korean Giants are large and excellent keepers, even at room temperature. They are available at $2.00/pound when you pick them, $3.00/pound when we pick.

Spicebush: Our spicebushes froze to the ground this past winter. No spicebush berries for 2019.

Chestnut tree on June 14 showing damage from severe weather.

Chestnuts: Not available for You-Pick in 2019 – Sorry –  What happened? Very unusual weather. The fall of 2018 was very wet. The soil was saturated from September 2018 through June 2019. In October the weather was still warm and the trees did not harden off for winter. In early November, the winter hit with very cold temperatures. The trees that had not hardened off enough for winter took severe winter damage. Then when Spring came, we got record amounts of rainfall. During May and the first half of June we averaged one inch of rain each day for 6 weeks. Chestnut trees like well drained soil. All that water kept soaking in and keeping the ground around the roots saturated. Our tree roots started dying. In June many trees had still not leafed out. We were afraid we had lost 80% of our mature chestnut trees. In July we started to see recovery. Now in August we think we only lost 10% of our trees, but there was no chestnut bloom in June and hardly any burs on the trees. We now believe we may only have a few nuts, but not a real crop in 2019. As such we are not opening our grove specifically for chestnut harvest. You are welcome to harvest what you find while here (see $15 minimum above), but we discourage people to come just for chestnuts.

See the previous you-pick season posts on how we ran the you-pick in 2017 & 2018 for chestnuts.

Healthy chestnut branch in August with no chestnut burs.

2019 Chestnut You-Pick Prices:
If you manage to find any chestnuts, you pay $2.75/pound for everything you picked up. We discount that price by 25¢ if you come on a Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday. On these days the price is $2.50. If you don’t want all the nuts, we will pay you 50¢ for each pound of chestnuts you gather and don’t take home.

Agroforestry, You-Pick

Black Raspberry You-Pick – New this year!

This was posted June 28th, We have now closed the Raspberry patch for the year.

We have a bumper crop of black raspberries this year. We are offering them to you-pick customers for $3.00/pound. If we pick them, they are $10.00/pound.

Picking wild black raspberries at Red Fern Farm.

Tom started mowing paths around the berry patches back in May. Now there is a network of paths in our “wild” woods edged with wild black raspberries. This is rough ground. In some places there are stalks of plants sticking up or munched up thorns from Honey Locust on the paths.  There are mosquitoes and black flies. There are also lots and lots of berries. Two customers the morning of June 28 casually picked 5 1/2 pounds in about two hours. You will need to

bring your own boxes, but you can drive up close to where the paths start.

Part of the 2017 wild black raspberry harvest from Red Fern Farm.

If you are interested in picking, contact us. We will try to schedule you so you have a huge area all to yourself. You can call 319-729-5905 or email kathy@redfernfarm.com .

Agroforestry, Events

Nut and Fruit Growers Unite in Iowa City in Late July, 2019

A great conference will be held in Southeast Iowa at the end of July 2019.  the Northern Nut Growers Association (NNGA) and North American Fruit Explorers (NAFEX) will be holding a joint conference at the Graduate Hotel in Iowa City, Iowa from Sunday July 28 to Wednesday July 31. You can see more details on the NNGA’s website at https://nutgrowing.org/nnga-2019-annual-conference/ . The cheapest, early bird registration fees, end July 3rd, so check it out soon. You can still register up to the day of the conference.The conference will include over 40 speakers with topics on hazels, chestnuts, sour cherries, pawpaw, walnuts, currants, pears and more.  Tom Wahl will be helping with a grafting presentation along with talking about seedling versus grafted chestnut trees.  Registration is open and there are many options. You can attend one day and skip dinners or splurge and take all the offers to network with other nut and fruit tree growers. Contact Kathy at kathy@redfernfarm.com if you have questions.  – Kathy Dice

 

Agroforestry, Chestnuts

Chestnut Growers Workshop

Practical Farmers of Iowa has been working with Red Fern Farm to put together a full-day chestnut workshop. This workshop will cover all aspects of chestnut production and marketing in the Midwest and will be held at the Iowa Arboretum, Madrid, Iowa, on February 2, 2019, from 9:00 am to 5:00 pm. Topics will include site selection, planting and tree management, varietal recommendations, grafted versus seedling trees, harvesting and curing, marketing, and financial resources.

3 Chestnuts in opening bur.

Chestnuts are a valuable nut crop that can be grown in a low-input, chemical free agroforestry system that includes permanent ground cover. Depending on soil types, they can be an excellent crop for land designated as highly erodible. Seedling chestnut trees of superior genetics can begin bearing nuts after 3 – 4 years on a good site and with good management. At 12 – 15 years they can produce 3,000 or more pounds per acre. In Iowa, chestnuts wholesale for an average of $2.30/pound.

The profit potential of chestnuts has encouraged the planting of chestnut groves throughout much of Iowa. Roger Smith, manager and owner of Prairie Grove Chestnut Growers, buys and sells chestnuts.  In 2018 he sorted, bagged and sold over 84,000 pounds of chestnuts grown in Iowa, Missouri and Illinois. He sees no end to the market potential of chestnuts and plans to plant an additional 20 acres of chestnut trees to his existing chestnut groves.

Speakers will include Roger Smith, Tom Wahl of Red Fern Farm, Aaron Wright District Forester with the Iowa DNR and Mike Gold, Associate Director of the Center for Agroforestry – University of Missouri. Preregistration is required and costs $10 to $60 depending on membership in Practical Farmers of Iowa. For more information, or to register, visit https://form.jotform.com/tamsyn/pfi-chestnut-workshop or call Debra at Practical Farmers of Iowa at (515) 232-5661.