A crisp wind blows through an open garage — baskets of apples are stacked neatly against one wall with over 20 different varieties, each sorted accordingly.
Some are best for sauces, some for baking purposes. Others, like the Yellow Delicious, are an all-purpose classic. Their red, green, yellow complexions and varying sizes — some as small as a tennis ball, others bigger than the average fist — are not the only produce found here.
Pumpkins and squashes neatly litter the lawn just outside. They too range in varieties from Flat Stackers to Pie Pumpkins.
The sharpie-marked paper plates labeling each pumpkin and apple type alludes to the homey, humble feel of a family-owned business. Dan Spencer is one of the three brothers who led the farm — he started the orchard, under their umbrella business, Spencer Farms, in 1972.
He and his two brothers own and run the rest of Spencer Farms, selling other farm produce. Spencer manages the orchard, which opens seasonally for six weeks from September 14 to October 31.
Home to nearly 75 different kinds of apples, the orchard is tucked away in the rural farmlands of Upland and allows people to come throughout the week to purchase pre-picked apples for a few dollars a pound.
On the weekends, the orchard sells fresh, unpasteurized apple cider — something the farm just resumed for the first time in 18 years.
Spencer and his best friend Bob Daugherty planted the original orchard in spring 1982 after acquiring the land ten years prior. They planted 450 trees that season, mostly growing Red Delicious, Yellow Delicious, Jonathans, Cortlands and McIntosh apples on the 240 acre farm.
“If I’d been a smart man two years ago, I’d have taken out every Red Delicious and replaced it with a Honeycrisp because everybody likes Honeycrisp,” Spencer said.
The farm often runs out of Honeycrisp apples before the end of the season, and Spencer has to outsource to an orchard in Michigan.
On Thursdays, they squeeze the Red Delicious apples for cider, producing 50 to 100 gallons to sell on the weekends.
In the orchard’s first few years, Spencer learned his craft from a fellow local orchard owner, Kenneth Dooley. In addition to working with Dooley, Spencer joined the Eastern Indiana Fruit Growers Association from Purdue University to learn more about caring for his trees.
The job is tough, Spencer said. While Spencer has workers running the cashier, he harvests the crop by himself alongside Daugherty and another friend, Tim Hall.
A separate group of people work for the orchard, running the cash register in the garage; different individuals run the front each day of the week.
From the age of 13, Valerie Trees and her family were close friends with the Spencers. She grew up with Spencer Farms Orchard, helping out with the register even now – over a decade later.
“(Dan Spencer) can look at a tree, and he knows what it is without even having it marked — he doesn’t have any of his trees marked,” Trees said.
As the community has grown through the years, so has their customer base, she said.
The garage that hosts the storefront of the orchard doubled in size this year to hold more produce and customers as well as other products, including outsourced jams, honey and Spencer Farms Orchard T-Shirts, Trees said.
“It’s been super fun every year to be able to come back and see people we see every year and see their smiling faces,” she said. “The Spencer family is a great family. They’re one of the best families you could ever know.”
