Being a busy fruit farmer meant that Wally Smith did not have a lot of time to sit and wait for customers at a roadside fruit stand. He decided to install a sign beside highway 97 that read “drive in fruit stand”. He had constructed a permanent shelter which would keep the fruit safe from weather related elements.

Wally’s idea was to sell fruit from the tree to the public so it was as fresh as could be. Any unsold fruit picked that day would be shipped to the packing house for processing there. The packing house demanded that the fruit be a certain quality and that anything less than the approved quality was destined for the cull bin. That gave the general public a security that they were buying a good product. Anything sold at the fruit stand was called “orchard run”, which meant a product that could be small, misshaped, or damaged from insects or hail. The most misunderstood fruit was the peach. The unscrupulous grower or fruit peddler could sell the naive public green fruit by giving them some ridiculous tale on how to ripen the fruit. That behavior was deplorable to Wally for he always felt that all fruit sales were representative of the product being grown in the Okanagan Valley. To give you an example of naivety, three weeks ago, we in Edmonton were getting flat sided peaches. I know these are not quality peaches, but the fruit peddler was selling them anyway and was using the reputation of the name of “Okanagan Valley” to further his sales.

When the customer arrived at Wally’s fruit stand and ordered peaches, he would go into the orchard and carefully pick the best of the well rounded peaches and set them into the picking pail. Each tree was picked at least twice for the fruit doesn’t achieve that well rounded quality all at once. When Wally transferred the fruit from the pail to the box he did it carefully to avoid bruising. Then he would weigh the fruit and determine a price.
Even if the peaches are hard, which is best for traveling, if they are well rounded they will ripen. Flat sided peaches ripen too, but are sour when compared to the well rounded ones. Of course nothing compares to a tree ripened peach which one can almost drink while consuming it.

Wally Smith was a man of integrity and because of that he had many repeat customers over the years, even the children of those customers as adults came to buy fruit.
The well rounded peaches are starting to come into Edmonton, thank goodness! Now the public will get the quality they so deserve.

written by Laird Smith