SILVER SPRING, Md. — It’s a good thing some apples don’t fall far from the tree, especially when it’s the Wenk family tree. They have been cultivating the same area of Adams County, Pennsylvania, for more than 200 years.
“It was something that it turns out that I did have a passion for, even though I hadn't really focused on it,” said Ben Wenk, who now co-owns Three Springs Fruit Farm with several family members.
Here’s part of our conversation with Wenk about how he chose to continue the family tradition now in its seventh generation, the ways they’re still innovating, and why he’s so in awe of people who shop at farmers’ markets. (Conversation edited for length and clarity.)
Your family name is on the apple crates here at the farmer’s market: tell me about your family background in the business.
So I'm the seventh generation in my family to farm in that part of Pennsylvania. So that goes back to the 1820s. We've been focusing on tree fruit since the 1960s. We got into farmer's markets after I came back from college in 2007.
Seven generations of anything isn't really something you hear much about, even in farming these days. Did you ever have a point in life where you thought you would do something different?
Oh, I would say for most of my upbringing, I had kind of almost put it in the back of my mind. It's something I took for granted. I was interested in music and thinking about doing music education or something of that nature for a long time. And really it took until about my senior year of high school for me to even consider what it'll be like for me to work on the farm and then eventually make the decision to come back. A lot of that was just thinking about the community I'll be a part of. And, and certainly the family aspect of it played a part as well. But it was something that it turns out that I did have a passion for, even though I hadn't really focused on it. It was just kind of like this latent thing maybe in the back of my mind for a lot of my youth, I'd say.
Tell me more about the “community” aspect of it here in the Mid-Atlantic region.
In Adams County, everyone refers to themselves as “fruit growers” instead of farmers. And I don't know how that started or what the origin of that is, but, a friend of mine always says, “try it on like it's a suit or something and see if you like how it fits, how it feels.” And the idea of calling myself a fruit grower, it just had this really comfortable, appealing thing to it. And I'd already done all my, my music school auditions, but it just, you know, it was just something about the idea that I could be a fruit grower and continue something that's important for our area and our region and be part of something that benefits a lot of other folks like that. It just had an appeal that really spoke to me.
Is there a technical difference in being a fruit grower versus being a farmer?
In a technical way, probably not. I mean, I'd say the most obvious difference is you're looking at a perennial cropping system. So we're planning the trees, and there's only a handful of fields and my dad has ever planted twice. So a lot of it is planning once and then waiting for them to bear and then being confident that things will go well and you'll be able to recoup your investment. We certainly grow a lot of vegetables, as you'll see at our market stand. So we’re familiar with like the rigors of annual crop production where you're planning and removing every year and maintaining your soils on a yearly basis. But there's something specific about tree fruits and perennial cropping systems that that just have a different pace, a different mindset maybe in order to be successful. It's just a different way of looking at it when you're really going to have one chance to make that field exactly the way you want it, and then you're going to rely on your decisions that you've made for the next 40 years.
It’s the opposite of a musical jam session when you can just improvise as you go along.
That’s definitely true. I love the spontaneity of that. And maybe honestly, maybe it's that contrast that kind of appeals to me. This is this is more like, you know, slowly crafting your symphony or something.
In most situations, the people shopping here can find what they need for cheaper somewhere else—and not have to brave the elements to do it. Yet, even on a rainy day, they’re here filling crates of apples. Why do you think that is?
There’s certain things you're always going to need a grocery store. You're always going to need to get your toothpaste, your cleaning supplies, tissues, those kind of things. And so I go into it thinking that every customer that we're going to serve here at a farmer's market, they've probably been to a grocery store already that week for those purposes. And every grocery store that you walk into, you end up in produce first. And so the way we think about our customer service is our ability to talk to customers and relate to them and suggest different things, find the exact apple they need for the exact thing that they're wanting to do. You know, it's that level of service that you're going to get at a farmer's market and not at a grocery store, because like I said, we're essentially assuming that people have already walked by produce, to be served by us. And we take that very seriously. That's like such an incredible-- in a world based on convenience -- that's so thoughtful and considerate, that folks will still come out to a farmer's market. But in return, you get an overabundance of apples, for example. A grocery store will typically have eight varieties of apples that are expecting you to do all the things that apples can do with eight varieties. Whereas, you know, we'll have specific apples for things like tarte tatin, you know, specific pastry driven varieties of apples you're not going to find in a grocery store. And we have the staff here to tell you exactly how to use those things. And so, you know, if you want to be like pleasantly surprised in your home meal making and your eating or like you're excited about trying something new, every single week you'll find something new at a farmer's market. It doesn't matter what season it is, you know what the weather is. There's always something interesting going on a farmer's market, and that's why I've always loved them. And that's, you know, why we continue to be big supporters of farmer's markets even after all these years.
But even after all these years, you’re coming up with new ways to use the apples you grow. Tell me about your hard cider operation.
It doesn't have a whole lot of family origin stories or anything like that, but it does come from farmers markets. Like there was a real pivotal moment in in my life when we were at our farmers market in Philadelphia, with my dad. And we got done with our market day and decided it was a pretty good day. We should, you know, go celebrating, and have a pint at the pub right behind us. And I was kind of in craft beer discovery mode and I ordered a Strongbow not knowing it was cider, and that was a cider that really kind of sparked my interest and kind of had this, you know, like this moment of inspiration because the ciders I had previously tried just didn't appeal to me for a number of reasons. And so even that fall, which would have been 2007, I started making some home batches, eventually learned a little bit more about what I was doing rather than just kind of putting it together by circumstance and neglect, and actually learned how to make the stuff. But eventually that led to our first bottling in late 2016. And so, yeah, the cider thing has been it's, it's been important for our family business, but it's also been a real great way to really represent our unique growing area, that South Mountain Fruit belt. We really feel like a well-made cider is a great representation of the soil under the trees. At the end of the day, we're very big advocates of farmland preservation and conservation measures in our area. And we feel like our ability to make a quality cider that represents the soils and to have it regionally distributed and get people to appreciate what we're able to do agriculturally in Adams County.
Why is it important for you to come all the way to the DMV from Pennsylvania for markets like this?
Well, it's a very dynamic place that's full of folks that you know care about these local agricultural issues, and that's obviously been built up over years and years. This was a real proving ground for farmer's markets and their resurgence dating back into the nineties and even before that with DuPont Circle Market coming online and things like that. So for us to be able to have a space here where I would be very comfortable saying—I don’t have any, statistics to back this up, but certainly as somebody who does farmer's markets in many regions around in the mid-Atlantic: there is a higher percentage of people that are invested in farmer's markets that are passionate about farmer's markets.
That’ll come out on a rainy day.
That'll come out on a rainy day. And that's something we can count on. That's one of the things that makes this kind of DMV area such an attractive place for farmers like us to do our farmer's market business when we have the option to go many places. This is really an area that we're all eager to set up, because of that passion for it, that enthusiasm, that understanding of why these things are important.
What does it mean for you to be rooted in your community?
So we're rooted very proudly in the South Mountain Fruit belt, and that is a region that is so unique in its climate, its topography, its soils. And we've seen a lot of issues with in other communities with, you know, things like frost and the effects of climate change. And so far, the sloping hillsides of Adams County provide the air drainages that protect our crops from those frost damages. And so it's a really unique region to grow tree fruit. It's a night and day difference when you find that Adams County fruit and you bite into it, whether it's a peach, a pear, an apple, all the tree fruit that we specialize in. And we've just got a very, very unique region. We're devoted to preserving it and maintaining all those beautiful, open greenspaces and maintaining a thriving agricultural community. I really feel like folks who come out to a market and try all these unique varieties of apples that are growing, I think that once they experience that, they'll understand where it is that we come from and why we've only moved a half a mile in 200 years. We really set our roots there for that specific reason. And I think it comes through in the product.
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LOVE WHERE YOU LIVE: HOMEGROWN EDITION
This fall, “Love Where You Live” is paying special attention to our neighbors who keep us fed. Wednesday mornings on Get Up DC, from Oct. 18-Nov. 22, we’ll highlight the region’s makers, growers, and purveyors who share their harvest with the DMV at weekly farmers markets. From a mother-daughter kimchi company putting a new spin on a cultural staple, to a first-generation organic farmer cultivating in all seasons, to a culinary-artist turned pickler—we’ll ask about their process, what keeps them going (and growing), and why the DMV is where they’re rooted. It’s a celebration of what it means to be homegrown in this diverse community, and a closer look at the economic and environmental importance of supporting local.
Each of the businesses profiled in “Love Where You Live: Homegrown” is a vendor at a local FRESHFARM market — a year-round, producers-only community of markets across the DMV featuring farmers and makers from around the Mid-Atlantic.
At nearly 30 markets, shoppers have the opportunity to support local businesses based within 200 miles of Washington, DC. FRESHFARM also supports the local good system through educational programs and food distribution and access programs.
To find a market near you, click here.