Friday, April 9, 2021
CapitalPress.com
5
Garrett Ranches: Focus is on tree fruits
By HEATHER SMITH THOMAS
For the Capital Press
WILDER, Idaho — Garrett
Ranches is a fifth generation fam-
ily business. It was started by H.W.
Garrett in Walla Walla, Wash., as a
fruit orchard after he arrived from the
Midwest in the early 1900s.
In the mid-1940s the farm oper-
ation expanded to the Central Cove
area of Idaho near Wilder, where
H.W.’s great-grandson Gary and
great-great-grandson Corby continue
the farm and orchard today.
“Our fruit label, the Double A
brand, started in 1914 and there’s
still a railroad stop near Walla Walla
called Garrett, where the railroad
went next to one of our packing
houses,” Corby said.
The farm at Walla Walla mostly
grew Italian prunes.
“My great-grandfather operated
that with his father for many years,”
Corby said.
In the mid-1940s they bought the
farm near Wilder and one near Grand
Garrett Ranches
Corby, Kasey and their father, Gary Garrett of Garrett Ranches in
Wilder, Idaho.
Junction, Colo., and grew peaches
there.
“Here in Idaho they grew mostly
Empress plums and early Italian
prunes for markets in Philadelphia,
New York and other big eastern cit-
ies,” he said.
Corby’s grandfather, Frankie Gar-
rett, enlisted in the Navy in 1942 and
fought in the South Pacific.
“He survived the war and came
back to the farm to help his dad. In
the 1950s they were running three
farms — in Idaho, Washington and
Colorado,” he said.
Frankie’s father then passed away
and Frankie was left with all three
fruit ranches.
“He restructured and reorga-
nized and kept everything together,
but by the mid-1960s focused more
on the Idaho ranch. He eventually
sold the Colorado place and parts of
the Washington place and moved to
Idaho full-time,” Corby said.
Frankie acquired more than 500
acres in Idaho and grew more vari-
eties of fruit.
“This is where I was raised, and
my dad, Gary, operated it the past 40
years and shifted more into apples,
peaches, apricots and cherries. We
began packing our own apples and
peaches and shipping them all over
the country. At one point in the 1990s
we were shipping apples all over the
world,” Corby said.
The home place has perfect con-
ditions for growing fruit, with south-
ern exposure and good sandy soil.
“There are many fruit farms here in
this sunny slope area called Central
Cove. We are a quarter-mile up off
the Snake River, with plenty of irri-
gation water,” he said.
“My grandpa, Frankie, grew up
on the fruit ranch near Walla Walla
and also raised cattle, rode horses,
and liked to rope in the Pendleton
Roundup every year. When the fam-
ily moved to Idaho they built a big
arena and he’d go to Mexico to buy
cattle and haul them up here for rop-
ing,” Corby said.
“Fast-forward a bit. My dad oper-
ated the fruit ranch his whole life and
will be 70 this year. We had to change
a little. Most farms had to either
get larger or smaller,” he said. “We
decided to get smaller, and in the past
10 years cut down most of our apple
trees and focused on more varieties
of fruit.”
Now they grow six varieties of
peaches, four varieties of apricots,
five varieties of cherries and continue
to expand into local markets.
In the past six years Corby started
growing vegetables as well as fruit,
selling sweet corn locally.
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