FARMINGTON, N.M. — People told Tom Kerby that nothing would grow on the patch of land he was eying along U.S. Highway 64.
Kerby disagreed, thinking he could work with the sandy soil. He took some ailing apple trees and turned the property into a small but successful orchard.
Sixty-five years later, the founder of Kerby Orchard continues to prove the skeptics wrong.
Kerby celebrated his 95th birthday on Nov. 6 with his family at the orchard that still provides a harvest of sweet peaches and apples every year. He remains active in the business.
"I can't hardly sit in the house and do nothing," he said. "I'm basically a working man."
Kerby founded the orchard in 1945 with his wife, Evelyn, who died in 2006 at age 83.
The business at 5471 U.S. 64 makes most of its income from apples, apple cider and peaches, but it also grows pears, cherries, apricots, nectarines and plums for customers' convenience, said Tom Kerby.
The apple cider already has sold out this fall and the apples are going fast. A sudden May frost when the temperature dropped 5 degrees in five minutes destroyed much of this year's crop.
While Kerby stays busy with grading pears and other tasks, his son, Leslie, 51, has taken over the day-to-day operations.
Kerby Orchard increasingly is an anachronism. The many orchards that once surrounded it long ago gave way to residential and business construction. Tom Kerby had offers to sell, too, but turned them all down. He didn't want to go back to working for an employer after being laid off from an Arizona copper smelter in the 1940s.
"I'm my own boss," he said. "I like working for myself. I like to get up and go to work, accomplish something during the day."
The orchard is irrigated with Animas River water delivered via the Echo ditch system. The water supply is crucial for the orchard in Farmington's high-desert climate.
Kerby Orchard sells primarily to customers on site.
"We depend on customers to come here," said Joanne Durkovich, Tom's daughter who now lives in Columbia, Mo., and was visiting Farmington for the birthday celebration.
A growing trend is for buyers to purchase only a half-bushel or a bag of apples, Leslie Kerby said. In years past, many families would buy a full bushel or two to can and save all winter, he said.
The Kerbys also sell at farmers' markets in Farmington, Aztec and Durango, Colo. The markets do not generate great sales for the orchard, but they raise awareness and help make new customers, Leslie Kerby said.
"Farmers' markets have been good to us," he said.
The Kerbys' main challenge, they say, is educating consumers about the difference between their fruit and that found in grocery chains.
Grocery store fruit is picked prematurely so it can be packaged and shipped, the Kerbys say. In contrast, Kerby Orchard's fruit is left on the tree until ready, often requiring two or three pickings by hand of every tree. The extra time allows sugars to set in and results in sweeter fruit.
The Kerbys vow that people who taste their fruit will enjoy it.
"I feel like that's our job," Durkovich said. "If you can get them to come here and taste the fruit, you've got a customer for life."
Tom Kerby said the orchard will remain viable into the future.
"There will have to be some changes, because everything changes and evolves," he said. "But there's no reason why you can't grow fruit on the place. And if you grow good-quality fruit, people will buy it."
Information from: The Daily Times, http://www.daily-times.com