HELENA — Dave and Karen Lewis have lived in the North Valley for nearly 40 years. For the last 15 of those years, they've had a hand-planted apple orchard, which means much more than just a bite of the sweet and juicy fruit. To the longtime residents, it's their pride and joy.
Following a family trip to Sweden, to visit his wife Karen’s family who has had the same piece of farmland for nearly 900 years. Dave was inspired to plant apple trees in their Helena yard. He did this after learning that apples could grow in colder climates and now the orchard which has grown to 40 trees is producing much more than just heartfelt family memories.
Last fall the orchard, produced 3,000 pounds or about 250 5-gallon buckets of mostly Macintosh apples.
Rather than selling his apples to a large retail chain, Lewis cut a deal with longtime friend and neighbor Terry Johnson, owner and operator of Johnson’s Farm and Garden, which is also located in the North Valley.
Johnson is grateful for Lewis’ friendship and partnership as Lewis’ growing process is precisely what he looks for when sourcing produce for his market.
“Since I’ve known Dave for many years, I knew that he also believed in good quality produce. That he wasn’t an advocate of using pesticides and herbicides. It was just a natural fit,” said Johnson. “We want to make sure that when we provide produce to the community that we know it’s good quality and it’s also free of harmful chemicals.”
"Last fall Dave Lewis would bring some of his crops almost every week and I would sell them almost immediately,” added Johnson.
Following cold temperatures last season which hindered many of Montana's crop yields this fall including Lewis’, he’s expecting a yield similar to what he produced a year ago this upcoming fall.
“This was not a good year this year because the trees didn’t have a chance to go dormant last fall now this year as you can see they are dormant and so we’re expecting a pretty good crop next year,” Lewis said.
Dave’s wife, Karen Lewis appreciates that they can pass on a tradition that is meaningful to her family’s cultural heritage to their great-granddaughter Kennedy.
“Having our great granddaughter here to climb the ladder and say Grandpa I’ll do it for you. Picking the apples is quite a chore and she’s young, 9 years old, and it's just a blessing to watch this being appreciated by her,” said Karen.
Karen hopes that whoever lives on their North Valley property in the future chooses to continue this tradition by taking care of the orchard.
“It’s just a good feeling to have it available and someday we’ll be gone. But the apple orchard will be here and hopefully, someone will carry on this legacy, maybe they won’t ever know that it was Dave and Karen Lewis who put this orchard in but it’s something that we will leave behind," said Karen.
