HutLo Acres
HutLo Acres, owned and operated by Mike Hutton and Essie Lom, is located in Knowlesville, New Brunswick.
Mike and Essie were living in Montreal, and looking for farmland, but could not find any affordable land in Quebec. In 1978, when they came to New Brunswick to visit a friend, they found the land that is now HutLo Acres. From 1978-1990, they were still living in Montreal, but they came down on Victoria Day weekend to plant apples trees and again during in the summer. By 1990, when they moved to Knowlesville, they already had 150 apples trees.
On the 93 acres of land that makes up HutLo Acres, there are five acres of apple trees, a half-acre of plum trees, and a very large garden. Other than apples and plums, they produce vegetables, including beans, potatoes, cabbages, broccoli, onions, garlic, and zucchini. Hutlo Acres also produces apple products, like cider and preserves.
“Growing apples in the Eastern part of North America represents just about the greatest challenge to organics”, explains Mike. There are diseases that there is no cure for, and because of these diseases and the climate, the types of trees that can be grown are limited. Not all types of trees can be grown, including some of the popular types like Granny Smith, or Red Delicious. Some of the 50 types grown at HutLo Acres include Redfree, NovaMac, Hazen and Liberty. Another challenge is not using sprays like the conventional farmers can. Conventional farmers can spray to knock off the flowers or the small apples, whereas at HutLo Acres they have to do this manually.
“We felt that we had a little piece of the world that we could do well by”, says Mike, as to why they farm organically. HutLo Acres was first certified in 1990 when Mike and Essie moved to New Brunswick. Mike explains that when you are certified, people can trust the logo, “and even people you don’t know can be sure that you are definitely organic, not just organic because you say so”.
Mike and Essie strongly support the idea of local food and small scale production, selling their products at health food stores in Fredericton, Woodstock, and Grand Falls Market, as well as through a CSA in Woodstock. They also believe that educating people is very important and try to teach consumers about their different types of apples, which may not have familiar names.
In the future, Mike and Essie are hoping to get a larger amount of trees in production. At the current time, 3 acres of apples are in production, but their goal is to grow and provide more local apples to New Brunswick consumers.
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