where the ripe fruit grows
The ins and outs of local fruit stands, a cornucopia of organic goodness
Morgan Schneider
Issue date: 9/11/08 Section: Arts
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A hard-packed dirt road leads the way to a charming whitewashed farmhouse atop a hill.
About 40 peach trees, laden with Flamin' Fury fruit, slope down the hillside.
"We had a garden, that's what started us - and the raspberries," Tom Kohasa said.
Their farm produces three colors of the tasty berry: red, yellow and black.
They offer peaches, too, and brandywine tomatoes and a few squash.
Kohasa started the business five years ago with his mom. In the spring, he sells garden plants and hanging tomatoes.
He makes the fruit syrups and spreads that line the shelves in their air-conditioned mini-barn.
Kohasa also crafts a kin to apple butter - peach butter.
"The trick? You gotta cook it a long, long time," Kohasa said.
Sitting in a weather-beaten white pickup truck, with dirt under his fingernails and a smile on his tanned, wrinkled face, Bill Hoff Sr. looks every part the farmer.
He and his wife own Hoff's, a farm in Coldwater. They grow tomatoes, cucumbers, asparagus, potatoes, string beans and a cornucopia of other garden offerings.
"My dad always done this," the 73-year-old Hoff said. "We built the building when I was seven or eight years old, but when he started, before the building, he was just selling radishes and tomatoes."
Their whitewashed stand has grown beyond radishes and tomatoes. Baskets of peaches dominate the area now, but Hoff said in a few weeks, pumpkins will ripen.
"Hey, he wants to know, is this squash is ripe enough, you think?" Connie Hoff asked her husband, hefting a sand-colored gourd high.
"It's ripe, mama. That's as tan as it's going to get," Hoff answered, flashing tobacco-stained teeth.
In 1999, his family moved from Fort Myers, Fla., to Allen, Mich.
Rick Poindexter said he swore he'd never go into retail again.
"Six months later, we started making maple syrup and it went from there," he said.
His wife, Jan, owns Sugarbush Farms country store (he's just the part-time help, Poindexter said) located along U.S. 12.
The store sells organic produce in the summer and fall months, and a restaurant in back grills hamburgers (from their own beef, Rick pointed out) and hotdogs and more.
Fresh fudge and frozen custard tempt customers, too.
Canned goods adorn the shelves, including spreads and syrups a Poindexter daughter packed.
"But I usually get roped into helping, too," Jenny Poindexter, 14, added.
The store is open from April through December, and just opened their Christmas area, with ornaments, Santas and trees.
"I was bah-humbugging it 'til I saw [the Christmas area]," Poindexter admits. "It's pretty cool."
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