Hoch Orchard and Gardens

Hoch Orchard and Gardens Hoch Orchard and Gardens is a 60 acre diversified organic farm. Hoch Orchard and Gardens is a 60 acre diversified farm.

Tree fruit is the primary crop consisting of about 30 acres of apples, plums, apricots, and cherries. There is another 10 acres of perennial fruit including strawberries, raspberries, blueberries and grapes. They also raise around 10 acres of annuals including vegetables, cover crops, and feed crops for animals. The remaining acres consist of pasture, hayfields and woodland. They have three Haygro

ve high tunnels planted with perennials. They are also experimenting with rotational grazing of hogs, sheep and poultry on a small scale. Their farm is a vertically integrated fruit production company - growing, packing, storing and distributing their own fruit. They also process low grade fruit into fresh juice, sauces, jellies, vinegar, hard cider and wine. All the value-added products are produced in their facility.

I hear the temperature dropped below zero in LaCrosse yesterday. Probably not much to harvest in your garden now. Check ...
12/05/2025

I hear the temperature dropped below zero in LaCrosse yesterday. Probably not much to harvest in your garden now. Check out the passion fruit I just picked. For a video of the passion fruit vine go to Carmelita Forest Garden .

How is your Garden doing?The days are getting short, the soil is freezing hard, and you have snow, ice, and below zero t...
11/22/2025

How is your Garden doing?

The days are getting short, the soil is freezing hard, and you have snow, ice, and below zero temperatures to look forward to.

We planted coffee trees under the banana plantation in the Carmelita Forest Garden this week. I also had a fresh picked passion fruit from my front yard with breakfast this morning.

Check out a video of our planting at Carmelita Forest Garden if you are already missing the greenery.

11/22/2025

No more Hoch Orchard and Gardens

I guess it is time to officially announce Hoch Orchard and Gardens is no More. We sold the property last December to the American Farmland Trust and the trust is leasing to Featherstone Fruits and Vegetables. We sold the last of the wine, cider, and vinegar over the last year so there no more Hoch Orchard and Gardens Products. We have closed the business and canceled the Farm Winery Lisence and the Food Manufacturer Lisence.

We will post on this page occasionally. We still have the old farmhouse at the orchard and will be staying there when we come back for visits and work at selling off our equipment.

Thank you for the support over our 40 years of running the farm. Follow Jackie and I as we set up a tropical permaculture farm in Belize. Follow us Carmelita Forest Garden

Harry Hoch

09/06/2025

Look at all the bags of Honeycrisp! The Featherstone crew is packing with a purpose!

09/06/2025

Look at all the Honeycrisp going into the sizer. Small apples are going into bags for the Featherstone Fruits and Vegetables CSA. The bigger apples are being boxed for sales to the Metro Co-ops.

09/06/2025

It's Honeycrisp season. We picked the first bins Minnesota's favorite apple this week. We packed them yesterday. I am trying to pull out all the bad apples before they go into the polisher. Did I miss any?

Harry

The new team at Hoch Orchard has been picking and packing apples the past week. Yesterday we packed Paula Red, Zestar, a...
08/26/2025

The new team at Hoch Orchard has been picking and packing apples the past week. Yesterday we packed Paula Red, Zestar, and Redfree. These tasty fresh apples are heading to the CSA.

Featherstone Fruits & Vegetables are managing the orchard the orchard now. Jackie and I have been helping out.

This first load of apples are going into the CSA shares so we put the bags right into the 20 bushel harvest bins instead of cardboard shipping boxes. Josh and Ian have the truck loaded and ready to head to Featherstone's packing plant in Rushford.

08/21/2025

The old packing line is back in action.

Hoch Orchard is back in business.Jackie and I sold the place last Decemeber to the American Farmland Trust. The trust i...
08/21/2025

Hoch Orchard is back in business.

Jackie and I sold the place last Decemeber to the American Farmland Trust. The trust is leasing the Orchard to Featherstone Farms. We committed to consulting with the new management team as needed through thier first season. We left the tropics on Saturday and got to the orchard on Monday. Today we helped Ian pack Zestar apples.

These Zestar are fresh picked and transitional organic. While Featherstone plans to ship apples to the Twin Cities Coops, these Zestar will be going into the CSA shares. The hot weather, warm nights, and cloudy steamy days have made the early apples ripen early and made for soft skin that bruises easily. Too many bruises for the coops, so the lucky CSA members get these first apples of the season. Juicy zesty Zestar. A real summer treat. They are kind of ugly this year but tasty as ever.

Follow up with Featherstone Farms on
where the apples will be available and how to sign up for a winter fruit share.

Check out what we are doing in Belize at Carmelita Forest Garden . Follow our new farm and the wild adventures Jackie t...
07/23/2025

Check out what we are doing in Belize at Carmelita Forest Garden . Follow our new farm and the wild adventures Jackie takes me on.

07/23/2025

Still making Vinegar

Jackie and are back in Belize now but I noticed I forgot to post one last video. We collected big pieces of mother from the vinegar tank. Some of it looked like a tablecloth but slimy. We have quite a bit of wine being converted to vinegar now. Both red and white wines, plus some apricot wine, and lots of hard cider.

The process is pretty simple. Expose the wine to the air and let bacteria convert all the alcohol into acetic acid. Controlled spoilage. We should have a good selection of vinegars to bottle this fall. We will let you know who will be retailing it.

Thanks,

Harry

07/15/2025

It's a mess now but this will be our Minnesota summer home.

Address

32553 Forster Rd, La Crescent
La Crescent, MN
55947

Telephone

+15073130645

Website

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