A popular South Australian pick-your-own (PYO) cherry orchard reported a great season with good volumes and high quality, with picking finishing in the final days of 2024.
Ancara Estate is located in Lenswood, and co-owner Carolyn Aleksandrowicz says the region is known as the fruit basket of the Adelaide Hills. While PYO has finished for this season, there are still pre-packs still available for order.
"This has been a good season for Adelaide Hills cherries - the season came about two weeks earlier than expected and so has finished for most orchards right before Christmas," she said Bird pressures have been high this season with reportedly challenging crop conditions in the north of the state pushing the birds to the Hills in search of food, so growers with permanent netting on their orchards have fared better than those without."
The business run by Carolyn and her husband Andrzej grows 12 different varieties: Stella, Merchant, Van, Lapin, Chelan, Kordia, Simone, Sunburst, Santina, Sweetheart, Rainier, Sir Tom. This spread of varieties allows them to enjoy a four-to-five-week long season, usually from mid-late November to late Dec/early January depending on the weather.
"We purchased the property in 2022, coming from the western suburbs of Adelaide with no prior farming experience, and are proud to continue the legacy of the primary producers that came before us," Mrs Aleksandrowicz said. "Our property has grown cherries for almost 100 years on the exact spot where our current orchard is, and previous owners had also grown apples, pears, and flowers on this property. The Adelaide Hills are blessed with rich, fertile soil, warm summers, and cool winters that provide cherries with the required chill hours they need. We also have a small vineyard of Gewurztraminer and a blue gum forest on our property that we are rejuvenating with plans to sell to the flower market, and we continue to explore other options for making a living off the land."
Since purchasing the property Mrs. Aleksandrowicz explains they have implemented a no-expense-spared orchard rejuvenation and maintenance program, which included using high-quality fertilizers, significant pruning, management of vigor, pests and diseases, and daily maintenance of permanent netting to deal with the bird problems.
"This year was our first year of using hives at blooming and combined with our intensive rehabilitation of our trees, has contributed to a yield and quality that has exceeded our expectations, and gives us the reassurance that we can continue this management for increased yields into the future," she said. It has been a lot of work for just the two of us, and not without its stresses, but it is a great lifestyle that makes us feel closer to and more in tune with nature and its cycles, and gives us a great sense of satisfaction to see the fruits of our labor being enjoyed by so many."
Mrs. Aleksandrowicz added that Ancara Estate chose the PYO side of growing because it provides the biggest return per yield, over the commercial and export markets - however, it does come with drawbacks of having the public on your property, such as damage to the trees, unnecessary cherry waste, littering, theft.
"While the season is short and intensive, the pick your own scene provides for moments of joy when we see families enjoying not only our orchard, but our property, and reveling in spending a few hours in a picturesque Adelaide Hills setting and then exploring the Hills further," she said. "Selling commercially is particularly challenging with the costs of picking, sorting, and packing eating into the profit margins, and this year we had to supplement the pick-your-own business with a small amount of commercial picking given the large crop we had. We do not currently export.
The farm gets plenty of visits from locals and tourists alike to the orchard and the owners have noticed that cherry picking is particularly popular with the Asian and Middle Eastern communities.
"We have a number of families that have made summer cherry-picking a tradition and have been doing it across multiple generations, which has been really enjoyable to see," Mrs Aleksandrowicz said. "Our first two seasons on the property were challenging in that our orchard was not at peak production and our 2023 crop was completely destroyed due to heavy rains, so this season has felt like how it could and should be, and we have received overwhelmingly positive feedback about the health of the orchard and the quality of fruit we are producing."
For more information
Carolyn Aleksandrowicz
Ancara Estate
Phone: +61 458 771 927
[email protected]
www.ancaraestate.com.au