Meet the Folks Who Grow Your Fruit

How can you turn your one-a-day doctor’s orders into a daily smile?

We did it by getting our apple fix from our friendly neighbourhood farmer.

We met Robyn King of Bite Me Organics at the Kelowna Farmers’ Market, where she was smiling serenely. Little did it show that she arrived at 5:30 am to secure her stall or that her household and orchard were running full tilt in harvest chaos.

That sunny morning our mission was Honeycrisps—hard enough to find without folding in our organic requirement. It was Bite Me to the rescue. But that morning, Robyn’s bestselling Honeycrisps sold out early. So she invited us to follow the winding road up the hill to her family’s home, where overflowing bins awaited. We stepped into another world.

Bite Me is a family operation. Robyn’s daughter-in-law Miranda greeted us amidst romping dogs and gorgeously displayed local art. Robyn’s husband Richard worked the apple orchard, while their son Matthew toiled nearby at their organic peach orchard. We were hooked by the family’s charm, heading over regularly to fuel that apple-a-day habit.

Funny thing about buying direct from your local farmers—you get to talk to them. Chatting at the barn, we learned how Robyn’s husband, Richard, converted to organic production in 2006 after decades of “traditional” orchard production. He’d retired from his day job and wanted a challenge. He sure got it.

For little more than the glory of keeping numerous chemicals out of the environment, Richard and other organic orchardists spend more time working their trees, do more hands-on labour, take lower yields, and tackle an endless series of complex scientific equations related to soil, light, moisture levels, insect pests, pollination, and more. Heroes or martyrs? Why would anybody sign up for that? How do organic farmers keep going?

Richard King would do it all again. He thrives on the challenge, the puzzle of this kind of farming—with fewer tools comes greater involvement, he says. His passion is stoked daily: heading out to his trees every morning, being connected with his land. That’s the reward.

Marketing the crop landed—accidentally—in Robyn’s lap. When friends were looking for organic apples, she supplied them. And then more folks came knocking on the door. Everything flowed by word of mouth after that (organically!). But who could resist sourcing apples from such a smiling face? Whenever we crunch into a Bite Me apple, we have to smile too.

Running Bite Me is the most fun Robyn’s ever had. Her commitment is fuelled by interacting with her community.

Apparently, the folks who grow our fruit like meeting us too.

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Michelle Superle wordsmiths with a mission—to make the world a better place and have fun doing it. She’s an English instructor at the University of Fraser Valley, where she teaches literature and writing courses encouraging students to see the world more clearly and use their mighty powers of awesomeness for good. Outside the classroom if she’s not writing, she’s riding horses, running trails, cross-country skiing, or bending yogically. Share a word or two with Michelle.