The Appleberry Farm - it's a dream come true

In 1982 the Athas bought 10 acres of pasture at 2401 W. Main with the idea of building a house on the sit eand having an apple orchard. "I'm a city kid with a graduate degree in business," explained Bob, but the idea if living on an acreage and having an orchard appealed to both he and his wife.

For the past 33 years, Bob has been the business manager for the Iowa Veterans Home and th couple continues to rent a home on the IVH campus. Bob claims he first learned about plant materials and horticulture when he started working for the IVH.

"In the early 1960s when I was first out of college and moved to Marshalltown, the Dutch elm disease destroyed nearly 1,000 elm trees in the 153-acre IVH campus. I took the bull by the horns and started a nursery and a program if replanting and landscaping the compus. It paid off because it's now a beautiful area with thousands of plantings and dozens of varieties of trees, shrubs, and flowers," explained Bob.

While Bob was no stranger to tree planting, the glamour of mowing 10 acres quickly lost some of its appeal, said Bob. So to keep the mowing to a minimum on the acreage, Bob and Donna started planting apple trees, lots of apple trees.

To keep pace with the frenzied apple tree planting, the Athas bought an additional adjoining 10 acres in 1986. Now 12 acres of 20 acres is covered with 15 different varieties of apple trees, including some of the newer varieties such as Gala, Empire, and Chieftan.

While Bob and Donna said they had always loved to grow things, they knew very little about starting an orchard. "We went to every horticulture meeting that had anything to do with fruit trees, we read every article we could get our hands on and we visited every orchard we were close to," recalled Bob about the project.

"We planted every one of those apple trees; sometimes friends would come out and help but basically it was Donna and myself planting in the evenings and on weekends," stated Bob. "we were and are out here every evening and weekend working. In January and February we can be seen out here in our snowmobile suits pruning; sometimes I think our neighbors believe we're candidates for the goofy farm," added Donna.

In addition to apple trees, the couple also planted red raspberries - thus, the name Appleberry Farm.

"Since it takes between five and six years for an apple tree to bear fruit, it wasn't until 1987 that the couple sold their first fruit from the orchard.

Commenting on the apple trees, Bob said, "We try to keep a good clean orchard and to be kind to the environment at the same time. We use the least possible amount of chemicals and we use no restricted chemicals, only the chemicals which are least toxic," he explained.

"We're part of the Integrated Pest Management Program and we work in conjunction with Iowa State University," he added. "They monitor our (pest) traps so that we only spray when pests most common to apple orchards are found. This saves money, saves the environment and saves me I've got to do all the spraying," laughed Bob.

In addition th the fruit, Donna also had a huge, three acre garden on West Main Street featuring strawberries, tomatoes, cucumbers, sweet onions, pumpkins, green beans and peppers.

"We had 300 tomato plants and we planted 16,000 sweet onions," recalled Donna. "We had elective mandatory picking and washing," laughed the Atha's daughter, Renee Mathews, who is now also involved in the business.

The garden produce, like the apples, could be purchased already picked or on a pick-your-own basis.

"The garden and the orchard are extemely labor intensive, so as the orchard grew the garden got smaller," explained Bob. This year the one acre garden consists of a half acre of pumpkins, about 30 tomato plants and flowers, which Donna dries and uses for decorating.

"When I forst started growing flowers I had to kind of smuggle them in," laughed Donna, "because Bob thought you had to eat everything you grew. But now he even knows the names of the flowers."

The flowers have become a big part of the Appleberry Farm. The flowers are dried and used in wreaths, swags and other natural arrangements. Also, Donna and her daughter offer a variety of craft classes using the dried flowers.

While the apple trees didn't need any special shelter, Donna did need a place to dry the flowers. Last year the Athas finally built on the acreage. In 1982 the couple had built a double garage to house equipment but it wasn't until last year they finally had running water and a sewer on the property. The two-story structure features a sales area o the first floor and potential living quarters on the second floor and drying rooms for the flowers.

The latest venture for the Athas is cider making. "We bought a cider machine and even though Donna and I have never made a gallon of cider in our lives, this fall we're going to try it," Bob said with a smile.

The Appleberry Farm is open 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday and on Sunday afternoons. During September and October the business has expanded hours.

"Now that we have a building we'll be open in November and December to sell Christmas naturals," stated Donna.