Friday, April 9, 2021
CapitalPress.com
13
Cabalo’s Orchard: Tree fruit, cider and U-pick
By HEATHER SMITH THOMAS
For the Capital Press
KUNA, Idaho — Cabalo’s
Orchard was fi rst planted in 1986.
Chan and Cathy Cabalo took
over the orchard from her father in
2004 and transitioned it to organic
production.
“We follow organic practices;
all the inputs we use are certifi ed
organic,” Cathy said.
Today, the small orchard has a lot
of variety to off er its customers.
The older apple varieties include
Red and Golden Delicious, Royal
Gala, Criterion and Jonathan. The
Cabalos added Pacifi c Gala, Graven-
stein, Jonagold, Honeycrisp, Brae-
burn, Granny Smith, Macintosh and
Winesap.
In addition to the apples, they
planted cherries, apricots, prunes,
plums, several varieties of pears, and
raspberry and blackberry patches.
The cherries are generally ready
to pick by early July, and this starts
the season, which goes into October.
Cabalo’s Orchard
Cathy Cabalo speaks with school students during an outing at her
orchard.
Travelers often buy fruit at their road-
side stand. They also have a pumpkin
patch, which is open to the public in
October.
Boxes of fruit are available for
purchase, but the primary focus
is U-pick. Some fruit is also sold
through Idaho’s Bounty — an online
co-op.
Another product they off er is
fresh apple cider.
“This is something we started 10
years ago, selling direct to the public.
Our cider season starts in early Sep-
tember,” Cathy said.
The fi rst apples are ripe by
mid-August, and cider is a good way
to use any extras.
For a while they partnered with
another family that had a large
antique cider press and customers
enjoyed watching the process.
“We only did that a few years,
however, because we needed a team
of people to run it,” she said. “We
purchased a new stainless steel cider
press a few years ago and continue to
make a lot of cider.”
In addition, they renovated their
store and are expanding it.
People from around the region
enjoy the fruit.
“We get a lot of people from
Boise and Mountain Home and enjoy
being face-to-face with our custom-
ers,” Cathy said.
The farm’s pumpkin patch has
expanded onto rented ground next to
their orchard.
On their 10.5-acre farm, roughly
two-thirds of it is orchards with more
than 1,400 trees.
“Our kids are grown, but they
come help us sometimes. Our son
and his family live in Kuna, our old-
est daughter lives in Meridian and
our youngest daughter lives in Lew-
iston,” she said.
Cathy handles the website, www.
cabalosorchard.com, writes blogs
and posts about the orchard on
Facebook.
This is how they keep customers
aware of when certain fruits and veg-
etables will be ready and when the
greenhouse will be open.
A few years ago, she started a
newsletter. “This has been helpful,
because people always wanted me to
call them when this or that was ready
to pick. Now they receive the email
newsletter,” Cathy said.
“We’re open Friday, Saturday and
Sunday to the public, so on Wednes-
day night I do the newsletter to let
people know what will be ripe this
week. People sign up for the newslet-
ter, and it also posts to our Facebook
page,” she said.
She uses an email marketing ser-
vice provider for the newsletter.
It allows up to 2,000 mailings per
month at no charge, she said.
She and her husband make a great
team, running the farm and orchard,
she said.
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