Wolfe Orchards

The+Wolfe+Orchard+stand+at+the+Ann+Arbor+Farmers+Market+has+many+varieties+of+apples.+

Anna Dinov

The Wolfe Orchard stand at the Ann Arbor Farmers Market has many varieties of apples.

The Ann Arbor Farmers Market, held on Wednesdays and Saturdays, attracts many Community High School students due to its ideal location in Kerrytown.

Every Wednesday when lunch starts, at 11:15, the flood of high school students comes rushing out of the back doors, headed across the street and to Kerrytown. After studying hard in school the entire morning, many students enjoy buying fresh fruit, snow cones and pastries from the local farmers market.

“I always get super excited when it’s farmers market day,” said Andie Tappenden, a sophomore at Community. “I really like how fresh and nice it is.”

One of the stands that is always there is Wolfe Orchards. Wolfe Orchards is a family business was started by Mary Wolfe and her husband. The Wolfe’s grow mainly stone fruits, which includes peaches, plums, apricots, sweet and sour cherries and over 50 varieties of apples.

This company started off as a small orchard just for the Wolfe Family in 1978. They began growing commercially in 1982.

“We have always been fairly self-sufficient; we grow our own food, our own meat, you know that sort of thing,” Wolfe said. “So this was kind of like that kind of hobby that got out of hand.”

Wolfe loves her orchard career. It used to be a part time endeavor for her husband and her while she was a school teacher. In time, she turned her hobby into a career.

Wolfe is very proud of how far the company has come over the years. Wolfe Orchards is much larger now, and it just isn’t feasible to do everything on their own like they used to. However, all the hours of hard work have payed off for Wolfe.

“It gives me great pleasure to hear people tell me ‘I bought your peaches and they were wonderful,’ [or], ‘your honeycrisp was awesome,’” Wolfe said. “That makes the hard work that you do worthwhile.”

Wolfe hopes to see her company continue to grow and expand. She hopes one day her son will take over the company because she trusts him to continue on.

“[We] have invested 30 or 40 years in [Wolfe Orchards] and so I would like to think that what we started continued.”