Honoring the Past while preparing for the future of the Orchard.
Breeden’s Orchard is located about 30 minutes east of Nashville atop a hill in Mt. Juliet, Tennessee. Marynell and Tommy Breeden owned and operated the orchard for the first 45 years. They grew peaches and apples, held school trips, pressed cider and Miss Marynell fried and baked her pies. In the 2010 decade the orchard got to be a bit much for a man and wife in their 70’s to handle and keep up with. In December of 2017, the orchard ownership changed hands when the Dorfman family bought it.
Never having tasted a fried pie or run an orchard, it seemed like a perfectly natural fit for a family with over 90 combined years of experience in the comedy club business.
There is a lot to learn and a lot to do. Mistakes and successes to be reviewed to help us prep for the future of the orchard. This fall we will undertake a solar project by adding solar panels to the roof of the store. This winter we will start our re-planting of the orchard. The trees on the orchard range in age of 20 to 35 years and should be replanted every 15 to 17 years. You will notice that we have cleared out the trees on a 3 acre parcel of the orchard. We are excited with the new varieties of peach and apple trees that we will be introducing to the orchard. Sure, it will take about 4 to 5 years before we can taste one of their fruits, but we can all watch the trees grow and hopefully flourish.
We also plan to break ground on the Barn at Breeden’s Orchard this winter. The Barn will be a boutique event barn to be utilized for smaller weddings and corporate events as well as space for local businesses to hold yoga, meditation, workout or craft classes. It will be perfect for school trips, birthday and holiday parties. Adding a commercial kitchen to the space, will open up a community style kitchen available for rent to local food truck companies, chefs and caterers.
While this season we are really just getting our feet wet, next season we will host a weekly farmer’s market, introduce more baked goods, including sweet and savory hand pies, house made breads, bacon, sausage, and other goods.
This summer has taught us a lot about you. You all love your fried pies! You love white peaches, Red Havens and Elbertas. You all can’t wait for You Pick to be back (well, neither can we). We learned that Tennessee peaches are pretty damn awesome and that each peach variety has its own delicious taste. We learned that Mother nature is not to be trifled with. We learned not to let the husband just go out and plant pumpkins with wild abandon.
