My dad, Marvin, celebrating another peach crop at age 88. Editor's Note (2026): I wrote this column more than 25 years ago for Fruit Growers News and Vegetable Growers News, two of my agricultural publications. At the time, my father was 65. Twenty years ago, we sold our family apple farm McCallum’s Orchard, but retirement never really suited him. He bought 10 acres, planted blueberries, raspberries, blackberries, strawberries and peaches, and opened Marvin Gardens, a farm ma

By Matthew J. McCallum You know you’re onto something when a group of apple growers from around the world stops in their tracks and marvels at your orchard. That was the reaction Italian orchard manager Michele Gerin received when he hosted the International Fruit Tree Association Study Tour in November, showcasing his multi-leader apple tree system. Gerin is a farm manager for the Mazzoni Group, which grows more than 5,000 acres of fruits and vegetables in northern Italy’s p

When I began writing What Grows in Silence, I wasn’t trying to write a bestseller. I wasn’t even thinking about an author website, let alone a blog. I simply wanted to write the best novel I was capable of writing, whether anyone ever read it or not. It has been in my head for a long time. Usually that’s my process. I write and rewrite in my head and then all of a sudden one day it comes pouring out. It took me about six months to put my first draft together. Then, slowly, mo