This article is sponsored by Chester County Economic Development Council.
Vollmecke Orchards, a 37-acre farm located in West Brandywine Township, has been providing fruits and vegetables to area residents since 1984. The woman behind the farm is Karen Vollmecke.
Karen has had a passion for agriculture since she was a young girl growing up in Delaware County. She often visited her grandparents in Charlottesville, Virginia where they had many fruit trees on their land. Her parents, Jan and Albert, were gardeners who always loved to grow both flowers and food, too.
After graduating high school, Karen made the choice to attend The Longwood Gardens Professional Gardener Program. This program allowed her to live and work at Longwood Gardens while honing her skills as a horticulturist. While at Longwood, Karen fell in love with both rural Chester County and water lilies.
After she graduated from the program at Longwood, she returned home and began a business growing water lilies and other flowers and selling them to local garden centers.
Over time, Karen grew interested in renting some land to expand her business. One day, she opened the newspaper and immediately saw a property for sale. It had an old stone house, a stream, a pond for water lilies and some fruit trees on the property.
Karen convinced her parents to come visit the land and they all immediately fell in love, but put it out of their minds as they were merely looking to rent. Then, Karen found out that the land was going to auction. She and her mother went and came out the owners of a beautiful 37-acre farm.
At the beginning, the Vollmeckes had strawberries, asparagus and apples already on the property that they continued to grow. The farm sold their fruits and vegetables to local restaurants and also to the public via the “sales porch” on the back of the stone house.
One of the benefits of the location was that Hibernia County Park was just a short distance away. There was a bridge that crossed the Brandywine River that brought frequent visitors over to her farm. Unfortunately, the bridge closed and with that came decreased traffic and decreased sales of the farm goods.
Shifting gears, the Vollmecke family began selling their goods to farm markets in Philadelphia as well as continuing to sell to local restaurants.
Karen says that they started noticing that the plants required more and more chemical sprays to keep them free of disease and insect issues, and the soil did not appear as healthy as she wished, either. She started reading about organic farming practices and began composting. The plant and soil life responded very favorably to the addition of compost so she was encouraged to continue with organic growing. The farm started planting more and more diverse crops and they soon realized that all of these new crops required a different approach to marketing.
They had spent years marketing to other roadside stands, grocery stores, restaurants, producer-only markets, and from their “sales porch.” Now it was essential to find people who were interested in buying and eating organic produce. The CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) model seemed an ideal fit for Vollmecke Orchards.
A CSA is a mutually beneficial relationship between a farm and a community of supporters. CSA members make a commitment to support a farm throughout the season—primarily by helping to cover the yearly operating budget by purchasing a share of the season’s harvest, early in the year. In exchange, the farmer provides members with fresh, nutritious food harvested at the peak of ripeness, flavor and nutrition throughout the growing season.
By making this commitment, members share in the risks as well as the bounty of growing food. Becoming a member creates a responsible relationship between people and the food they eat, the land on which it grows, and those who grow it.
The Vollmecke’s started their CSA in 1998 with 35 members—making it one of the very first in Chester County.
Now, 16 years later, Vollmecke Orchards has five employees on staff to help Karen plus some workshare members, who work on the farm in exchange for a CSA share.
Currently, they are growing a wide variety of fruits and vegetables including peas, tomatoes, spinach, peppers, onions, potatoes, squashes, herbs, apples, peaches, melons, berries and so much more.
CSA members can pick up their share at the farm on Tuesdays or Fridays between 3:30 and 7 p.m. Additionally, farm share boxes are delivered to several locations including The Economic Development Council at Eagleview Corporate Center in Exton.
Even if you aren’t a CSA member, you can still visit Vollmecke orchards on Tuesdays and Fridays to purchase fresh fruits and vegetables, eggs laid by their own Happy Hens, Vollmecke compost, housemade pasta sauce and fruit butters.
In order to support other local farmers and artisans, the Vollmecke store also sells Dr. Elkin’s Angus burgers, grillers and kielbasa from Buckrun Farm, wild-caught Alaskan sockeye salmon from Wild for Salmon, Pequea Valley Farm Yogurt, Wonderful Good Cheese & Bread from Stoudt’s and Righteous Felon Jerky.
New this year, Vollmecke will be participating in the Coatesville Farmers Market on Wednesdays from 2–6 p.m., which is relocating to Brandywine Hospital’s parking lot near Reeceville Road.
To learn more about membership visit their webpage, “like” them on Facebook, email them or call (610) 383-4616.
Vollmecke Orchards is located 155 Cedar Knoll Road in Coatesville.
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