Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, October 10, 1995 TAG: 9510100049
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: B-6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MEGAN SCHNABEL STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
The Apple Barn probably isn't the kind of place people visit just because they happen to be in the neighborhood.
The bright red barn in Botetourt County is off a road called Apple Orchard Lane. It isn't really so far from civilization - and there are signs pointing the way - but when the road narrows and there's nothing on either side but cows and trees, Troutville seems farther than the 1.3 miles that the signs claim.
"You've got to want to come here, to come here," said Alfred Nichols. And apparently people do want to come, because Nichols and his wife, Rachel, have been in business for 26 years with no sign of slowing down - at least not during prime apple-picking season, which runs through late October - or until the trees are bare.
Nichols started out with three acres of apples in 1969, when he still worked for General Electric Co. in Salem. Now he's retired from his day job, and he has 21 acres - almost 3,000 apple trees - in his care, plus seven acres of peaches.
"I knew nothing about apples," he said. "But you learn, out of necessity." He said he still relies quite a bit on the apple experts at Virginia Tech, who test samples of his soil and advise on fertilizers and care of his trees.
If there seems to be an apple orchard on every corner in Botetourt County, that's probably because there is. Andy Allen, the farm management agent at the county Extension office, said there are eight to 10 orchards in the 545-square-mile county. In 1993, Botetourt County ranked eighth in the state in apple production, with a crop of 223,000 bushels.
It's a combination of the right soil, the right elevation and the right terrain, Allen said. And it doesn't hurt business any that the orchards are fairly close to the Roanoke Valley - meaning city dwellers who want to get back to nature, if only for a day.
Nichols may not claim to be an apple expert, but he does know all his apples by name and their ripening time and taste: Red Delicious, Golden Delicious, Rome, Stayman, Winesap, Granny Smith, York. He blends their flavors for his own apple cider, which he sells in his shop alongside candies and jellies and apple cider slushies, mouth-numbing drinks made from cider and ice.
But the biggest sellers are still the apples themselves: right off the tree or pre-picked and nicely polished. About 40 percent of the orchard's business is from pick-your-own apples, which sell for 20 cents a pound, Nichols said. He doesn't know how many people come through the Apple Barn each year, but he figures he gets more than 500 customers a week during the prime picking season. The pre-picked apples that Nichols sells for $14 a bushel or 59 cents a pound usually last until Christmas, then the shop closes for the month of January.
Nichols' customer count doesn't include the school kids who come through on tours during the last three weeks in September. "We peeled apples for more than 2,500 children this year," said Rachel Nichols, or "The Apple Lady," as she's called on several of the poster-size thank-you notes that cover the walls of the barn's back room.
Rachel Nichols helps out with the student tours, but her real domain is the Apple Barn gift shop upstairs, where the air smells of potpourri instead of apples. To be sure, there are some apples up here - apple core earrings, apple necklaces, wooden apples - but black cats dominate.
Nichols is the nation's top dealer of Cat's Meow Village collectibles, little hand-painted wooden houses and accessories that all have black cats painted on them. Nichols is the largest of 3,000 dealers nationwide of the items made by F.J. Designs of Wooster, Ohio.
She opened the shop in May 1987, in several rooms that originally had been designed for orchard storage. Her husband sold her on the idea, she said. "He painted such a pretty picture of what it could be," she said with a laugh, "so here we are."
Back downstairs, away from the ceramics and the Christmas decorations and the black cats, Alfred Nichols was refilling the apple bins with stock from his walk-in cooler. He held up a shiny Yellow Delicious to the light.
"I eat apples every day, I guess," he said. "And I never do get tired of them."
To reach the Apple Barn from Interstate 81, take exit 150B and follow U.S. 11 to Troutville. Turn right at Rader Funeral Home onto Stoney Battery Road, then turn left onto Apple Orchard Lane. The Apple Barn is about 11/4 miles down the road.
by CNB