Local family owned orchard closes after a great crop season but continues to sell their delicious apples throughout the winter to the public and to SUNY Oswego as well. Not only do they sell apples but they also sell vibrant red cherries. Along with selling to the public and SUNY Oswego Fruit Valley Orchards also picks and produces apples for popular apple-based products brand Motts.

Although the Orchard has been around for many years it has recently been under new ownership for the Gfeller family from Northern Virginia. Owner and farmer Craig Gfeller said that he came to upstate New York to raise his family on a farm much like he did in Rochester. They purchased the land last July in 2017 and have been roaring ever since.

They’ve been able to rake in tons of families to their beautiful orchard with their U-pick program, when asked what family friendly activities they offer at the orchard Craig responded with “We offer a lot of activities here, mostly just U-pick right now,we have families that come and have picnics here, just a great way of spending the afternoon as a family.”

The crop season has been a little short this year due to the fact that not much rain had been around Oswego in the early fall months. However the orchard was still able to grow a great crop under the conditions they had. They grew and sold some of the same apples like Macintosh but also sold new apples to the orchard like Snap Dragon bred by Cornell University where Craig is an alum from.

If you would like to check out Fruit Valley Orchards you can visit their website www.fruitvalleyorchard.com or call them at 315-342-3793.  They open again next fall but continue to sell their remaining crop throughout the winter. Get the while they last!

Earth Week may be coming to a close, but what did you miss? Quite a bit tobe frank. This past week SUNY Oswego celebrated everything that earth does for us and demonstrated support for environmental protections. This week the campus celebrated and presented the contributions that students and faculty have made thus far in order to preserve our schools beauty and environment.

On Monday we discussed how the removal of plastic and wastes from around campus and the dining halls has genuinely made a big impact on the amount of plastic that is discarded on a day to day basis.

On Tuesday we participated in reducing car usage by being able to use amenities provided to us through the Sustainability office such as bike share where you can rent a bike from the office located in Hewitt and bus share which provided alternate transportation for commuter students.

On Wednesday a climate change panel co-hosted by the Environmental Advisory Council and the Sustainability office discussed the challenges within the concept of climate change which will feature multiple different faculty members all representing a different program of study at Oswego.

On Thursday we focused on using alternate search engines that give back to the planet such as Ecosia which has been using their profits since 2009 to plant trees which has resulted in over 54 million trees being planted. We also focused on our new printing program Lakerprint which is projected to save around 120,000 sheets of paper a year due to getting rid of banner pages and sheets with our names.

However on Friday Lucas Grove a senior philosophy-psychology major will present the progress he has made in the “Fresh Water for All” project.

If you would like to learn more about Earth Week or simply would like to get involved around campus you can email the Director of Sustainability on campus Jamie Adams at jamie.adams@oswego.edu or call the office at 315.312.2500.