News

Fourth generation steps up at U-pick orchard

Third and fourth generation Stepp family members, seated, from left, are Clair, April, holding Elsie; Sarah, holding Zella; and Heather, holding Sadie. Standing are Gus, Callie, Danielle, Cortney, Maggie and Ryce.

By Bill Moss, Published: August 22, 2018

Four-year-old Heather Stepp Erwin (left) and 5-year-old Danielle Stepp McCall represented Stepp’s Hillcrest Orchard in the 1979 N.C. Apple Festival Kiddie Parade. They were dressed as apples and carried a sign that read ‘Apple of Our Papaw’s Eye.’ Along with their cousins, they won the trophy for Best Costume.

EDNEYVILLE — The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree in the Stepp family.
It all began in 1964 when J.H. Stepp bought a 70-acre farm and apple orchard off Pace Road that he had been sharecropping. J.H.’s family had operated a packing house, general store and hardware store in Dana for years but he was ready for a change. He moved his family to the farm in 1967, named it Hillcrest Orchard. A pioneer of direct marketing, Stepp began selling apples out of his car trunk until he built a small fruit stand.
The 1990s were hard on many Henderson County apple growers as the importing of foreign apple juice concentrate became more prevalent. Fortunately, the Stepp family had another idea in the works — the pick-your-own trade.
Mike Stepp, the youngest son of J.H. and his wife, Yvonne, worked off the farm during the ‘90s but the family business was always a part of his life and he returned to the farm in 2003. The business had grown as more and more people tried picking their own apples. In 2004, Mike’s wife Rita retired from teaching and joined Mike on the farm. Their son-in-law Rex McCall, husband of daughter Danielle, has also joined the ranks of full-time farmer.
Today, Stepp’s Hillcrest Orchard grows 38 acres of luscious pick-your-own apple trees carrying 20 varieties of apples. During the peak of the apple harvest, they employ 40-plus seasonal workers.
“We call what we do agritourism,” Rita says. “Our main focus is pick-your-own apples. About 90 percent of our crop is pick your own. We do have some picked to sell in our retail store for those who don’t want to pick. Plus, we added the other activities to bring more education and value to the farm.”
In addition to the U-pick orchard, the Stepps sell other fruit and vegetables grown on the farm including pumpkins and grapes. They sell apple cider and apple slushies and pumpkin doughnuts baked fresh in a bakery on the farm. A 5-acre corn maze opens Labor Day weekend. The orchard also offer educational tours for preschoolers through 2nd grade.
Rita, being a retired teacher, is proud of the educational tours offered on the farm.
“Every week day from mid-September through October we do two school tours a day,” Rita said. “We get children from Henderson, Buncombe, Transylvania, Haywood and Jackson counties. We see about 6,000 children every year. They take a wagon ride tour throughout the farm. Then we do an educational activity that we try to match to the school curriculum. The corn maze is educational. They answer questions about the farm to find their way through the corn maze. We also offer a pumpkin patch tour and talk about the life cycle of the pumpkin. We try to be as educational as we can.”

Prime location at Apple Festival

Day to day, from mid-August through October, the Stepps count on apple buyers to find them. On Labor Day weekend, the Stepps go to where the tourists and local people have gathered by the thousands to celebrate the apple. The family runs the apple stand across from the Historic Courthouse, one of the busiest corners on all of Main Street during the N.C. Apple Festival.
Danielle organizes the booth, gathers up the family farm hands and assigns jobs to everyone. On any given day of the festival, visitors may find Heather, Cortney and April, along with their husbands, manning the popular booth. The bigger kids in the fourth generation are pressed into service bagging apples, serving apple samples, stocking apple cider donuts and doing work is needed. Ranging in age from 10 to 17, they put in long hours at the festival.
Mike and Rita’s daughters, Danielle and Heather, along with other third generation members have a passion for the Apple Festival and everything it celebrates. Danielle and Heather, along with their cousins, won the trophy for Best Costume at the 1979 NC Apple Festival Parade. Today, they operate the farm’s Apple Festival booth at the corner of First Avenue and Main Street, across from the Historic Henderson County Courthouse. Throughout the festival, you may find Danielle or Heather along with their two sisters Cortney and April and husbands, manning the popular booth. You will also find some of the fourth generation of Stepps bagging apples, offering samples, stocking the apple cider doughnuts and more.
As for the 2018 apple crop, it has been a tough year. “We have a shorter crop this year, not a full crop,” Mike said. “There are some varieties that get into a bi-annual blooming trap and don’t produce many blooms, mainly the Fuji and Cameos. I feel like it is due to weather stresses over time. We believe we had more cold damage than what we originally thought. Tremendous amounts of rain cause a problem with disease. It’s been a real fight this year but we are in good shape.”
Stepp’s Hillcrest Orchard opens for the season on Aug. 15 with Ginger Gold, Gala and Honey Crisp along with grapes ready to pick. “Our busiest time is from the third week of September through the second week of October. There are more varieties ready to pick,” Rita said.
J.H. and Yvonne have since passed on, but the Stepp family has strong ties to apples and the NC Apple Festival. They plan to keep apple farming in the family for generations to come.
“The pick-your-own apples was such a small undertaking at the time,” Mike said. “We really didn’t know that it would take off like this.”
“Mike’s father used to say that scariest thing he ever did was to sit here and wait for people to come pick apples. He was dependent on it for his livelihood,” Rita said. “We have visitors from all throughout North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida, Georgia, Alabama, Louisiana. We our generations are seeing generations of visitors who return year after year.”

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U-Pick orchards include Billy Laughter Orchards, 111 Tullahoma Farms Lane; Continental Divide Produce, 2494 St. Paul’s Road; Coston Farm & Apple House, 3748 Chimney Rock Road; Grandad’s Apples ‘N Such, 2951 Chimney Road Road; Justus Orchards, 187 Garren Road; Skytop Orchard, 1193 Pinnacle Mountain Road, Zirconia; Stepp’s Hillcrest Orchard, 170 Stepp Orchard Drive.