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Thomas Orchards: A family affair
Jeff Thomas
is ‘cautiously
optimistic’ about
the 2021 fruit crop
By STEVEN MITCHELL
Blue Mountain Eagle
IMBERLY — Jeff Thomas of
Thomas Orchards is “cautiously
optimistic” about this year’s
crop.
The third-generation farmer, whose fam-
ily orchard sits beside the John Day River in
Kimberly, said that with months to go before
the 2021 harvest, so much can go “good or
bad.”
He and his family grow various fruits
for picking, packing and canning that they
distribute across the Northwest, includ-
ing cherries, apricots, peaches, nectarines,
apples, pears and plums. The family has a
retail fruit stand and a “you-pick” side as
well.
“We’re starting to see some apricots
bloom,” Thomas said. “And peaches and
cherries will come toward the end of March
or the first part of April, and then apples
come on toward mid to late April. But you
get one cold night in April, and six hours can
wipe away hundreds of millions of dollars.”
Although the Thomases have a frost
protection system, “at the end of the day,
Mother Nature wins.”
K
Tanni Wenger Photography
The Thomas family.
Blue Mountain Eagle/File Photo
The entrance to Thomas Orchards near Kimberly, in Grant County.
LOOKING BACK AT 2020
Contributed Photo
Despite all of the typical planting and
harvesting challenges, not to mention a
pandemic, 2020 was not a bad year for the
orchard, Thomas said.
“Quality was good,” he said. “I guess
people still want fresh produce come sum-
mertime. You saw that in the sales.”
He said apples were down quite a bit
overall. But on the “you-pick” and retail side
of the businesses, sales were up quite a bit.
Sales increased considerably at the start
of the pandemic, a trend Thomas attributes
primarily to people being concerned about
Jeff Thomas’s grandfather and father.
Angel Carpenter/Blue Mountain Eagle
See Orchards, Page 17
Jeff Thomas at work in his family’s fruit orchards.
Contributed Photo
A row of young fruit trees at Thomas Orchards.