Eco-Friendly Packaging
We feel every decision that is made on our farm is an opportunity to benefit our planet and the health of our community. For this reason, we make every effort in the selection of our packaging to be conscious of the effects it poses on our environment. You may notice this effort reflected in our compostable straws, our choice of paper donut bags rather than plastic clamshells, and the eco-friendly products we use to serve our customers with.
Minimizing Waste
A large part of respecting our environment is minimizing waste. We do our best to let nothing go to waste here at the farm. When we press our apple cider, we have a large quantity of apple mash left over, and when we prune our trees we have a great deal of small branches. Both of these are ground up and utilized as fertilizer in our fields, which both minimizes waste and meets a need in our orchard.
UV Cider Treatment
We hope that all that we do here at the Jeter Mountain Farm promotes the health and happiness of the guests who visit, which is why we refuse to serve apple cider that has not gone through our UV Treatment Process. We take pride in our UV Process, which is how we guarantee that harmful bacteria is killed before your family consumes any of our apple cider products. UV Treatment safely ensures your family's health while preserving the cider's just-packed, fresh-pressed flavor. Standard pasteurization methods use heat to kill bacteria which alters taste.
Integrated Pest Management
When practicing farming of any kind, there are many “pests” that pose a threat to plants, such as weeds, insects and crop disease. At Jeter Mountain Farm, we use an integrated approach to suppress such threats in a way that allows for a healthy harvest while defending the environment and human health. Some of these efforts include:
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Orchard Care - Cleanliness in our orchards is a huge priority, and keeping our orchards mowed and maintained is our primary method of controlling weeds. We are proud to state that we are a Round Up Free Farm.
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Growing Pest Resistant Varieties - Disease poses a huge threat to crops. We use grafted trees that have a grafted root stock more resistant to common diseases in our orchards, allowing us to avoid certain diseases without the use of chemicals. Grafted plants are non-GMO and allow us to make chemical use a last resort.
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Prevention of Pest Problems Developing - You may notice plastic barriers around the trunks of some of our trees. This is just one example of how we aim to prevent pest problems from developing in the first place, by adding a barrier to small animals that attempt to scale or damage the trees. Keeping our weeds and grasses well-maintained also prevents bugs or animals from creating a home in a place that would pose a threat to plants or humans.
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Employing Diverse Methods - Using a diverse range of pest management methods prevents us from having to rely on any one method too heavily, and increases our likelihood of success.
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Careful Pest Monitoring - We closely monitor the health of our orchards by carefully tracking the pests & diseases that are present at any given time. You may notice bug traps mounted throughout our orchards. These traps help us track what pests are present, and at what severity. We also have a pest management scout (consultant) who visits our orchard regularly to assist in monitoring and identifying pest issues within our crop and can offer professional advice on the best way to combat the issue.
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Minimal Pesticide Use - Our hope is that our preventative efforts will keep our need of pesticides to a minimal level. Using Integrated Pest Management methodology, a decision to use pesticides is only made when the population of pests reaches a number that would be detrimental to the quality of the harvest and no alternative pest management methods remain which could provide effective control. When pesticides are necessary, we follow the recommendations made by the NC State Extension and follow all labeled requirements and restrictions, as well as precisely timing the treatments to be as effective as possible in an effort to diminish the need of additional future applications. The safety and health of our guests is our top priority. Many parts of our orchards are completely chemical free, but in areas where we use chemicals, our close adherence to pesticide guidelines ensures that no chemicals are present at the time our guests are in our orchards or when any of our fruits are harvested.
