Apr 29, 2011Haygrove winner planning for raspberries
The winner of the annual Great American Haygrove Giveaway was William McCaffery of Spring Rain Farms, East Taunton, Mass. If all goes according to plan, he will be erecting the Haygrove tunnel on his father’s land for a pick-your-own fall raspberry operation.
“We have never grown raspberries before, but we do have some experience with other fruits,” he said. “I’m also hoping to intercrop the raspberries with day-neutral strawberries (in separate rows) for the first year, before the raspberry canes shade too much of the foot path.”
Depending on how their labor looks for the year, and how excited he can get himself about vegetables on the side, William said he might buy another set of ground anchors for the tunnel and rotate from a vegetable plot in the spring and summer to the raspberries in August.
William’s father, Bill McCaffery, has been growing cranberries for the past 27 years, and pick-your-own June-bearing strawberries for the past 12. They also cut and sell firewood and horse hay. They don’t, however, deal much with farm animals, as a backyard flock of egg chickens are the only animals they consistently keep.
It took William a while to decide to go into the family business.
“I personally didn’t get interested in the farm until the end of high school, and then was off to college,” he said.
He graduated from Cornell University in the spring of 2010, majoring in agricultural sciences. He spent last summer and fall working in Haiti, helping establish an agricultural school. This year will be the first full growing season he is home and serious about agriculture, he said.
Look in future issues for the next opportunity to win a tunnel from Fruit Growers News and Haygrove.
By Derrek Sigler