James L. Matthews III
WWW.HAPPYACRESFARM.NET
FRUIT GROWERS SINCE THE 1980'S
During the early 1980's, my father James "Jim" Matthews Jr. (also known as "The Peach Man") retired from the U.S Army and decided to purchase a 53 acre piece of land that is now know as Happy Acres Farm. He planted several varieties of Peache tree's. Geordia Belle, Jim Wilson (a large white peach) and several other types I am not sure of. He planted a total of three (3) orchards for a total of 1,500 tree's. He spent a good part of his time cutting grass and pruning trees. After several years of work, his orchards bloomed into a very nice farm. Local's would come out and take pictures during blooming, even the local news paper (The Daily Hearold) would come out and put his tree's on their front page. Unfortunitly, he developed cancer and was unable to maintain his tree's. It did not take long for the insects (specially the borers) to claim the tree's and killed most of his work. in 2004, I started removing the dead tree's, pushing them up into piles with our backhoe and burning them. This was very dramatic to my father, kind of like a piece of him had died. I was able to save only one of his tree's out of 1,500. In 2005 I was able to start replanting. I planted Georgia Belle, Red Haven, Reliance, Gala and Ellberta's. I only planted thirty tree's due to finances. In 2006 I planted and additional seventy Peach tree's of the same variety, plus added the Lady White variety. Why different varieties, well... each variety blooms at the same time, but ripens at two to three week intevals, thus giving us Peaches for almost two months. In 2010 I planted another fourty five tree's, my choice was Canadian Norman's. Good, cold resistant tree's. We now have approximitly one hundred and fifty Peach tree's. In 2011, we should be able to harvest the entire one hundred tree front orchard. We will not get fruit from the back fourty five tree's until 2012. We have plans to clear and plant an additional two hundred and fifty tree's in 2012. I am hoping four hundred Peach trees, 15,000 sq. ft of Blueberries and approx. seventy five apple trees, three pear trees and a small grape vineyard will help provide an income towards our retirement. Visit us at www.happyacredfarm.net and take a farm tour. I think you will enjoy yourself.
Thank you for taking your time to read this Article.
James L. Matthews III
Owner/Operator