Admission: Free Monday-Friday; $4 per person on weekends and MEA Thursday and Friday; three years of age and under are free.
Are dogs welcome? Yes
Types of apples: Zestar!, Chestnut Crab, Sweet Sixteen, McIntosh, Honeycrisp, Cortland, Haralson, Honeygold, Regent, Keepsake and Macoun (SweeTango could be available next year).
FYI: The science of apple growing is called pomology (and includes study of other types of fruits).
Upcoming events include: Sept. 12-13 Art Weekend and Twin City Disk Dog Club Sunday at 1 p.m.; Sept. 19-20 Harvest Hoedown, Applewood slingshot-making class and canning demonstrations; Sept. 26-27 Isaac Newton Day Dreaming and Q&A session; Oct. 3-4 Pumpkin Fest; Oct. 10-11 Apple Theater
On the Net: In addition to www.minnetonkaorchards.com, Minnetonka Orchards is on Facebook, Twitter and has a blog.
Source: Minnetonka Orchards
By David Schueller
Goats stand on a shed roof, potbellied pigs are loose in a corn maze, a hootenanny happened and a hoedown is planned. Apples grow everywhere.
In the rolling hills of Minnetrista, this is agritainment.
Brothers Jay and Scott Schaper are working long days to prepare for the busy harvest season at Minnetonka Orchards.
It's only been a few years since the family decided to put more energy into the business rather than sell the family farm.
"If you're just going to sell apples, this would be a subdivision," Jay said.
Over the summer, the Schaper family was named Hennepin County Farm Family of the Year by the University of Minnesota Extension, given the honor for contributing to agriculture and their community.
"It was a nice honor," Scott said.
Jay does more of the business work while Scott is the apple expert. Jay's wife Nora runs a natural body and home products business called bodylish and father Lowell can still be seen driving an old tractor on the land.
They host weddings and events and in the harvest season open up the orchards for picking, which continues until it snows.
In 1970 the family moved from California to the farm and started growing cucumbers and strawberries. They switched to apples in 1976 and Lowell gave hayrides and sold apples.
But by 2005 the 40 acres had been put up for sale.
"All the locals, everybody, kind of knew that was the last year," Scott said.
Instead of seeing the orchards turned into houses, the family wrote up a business plan and went forward with trying to bring more people there and increase profits.
These days Minnetonka Orchards offers a smorgasbord of farm-related things to do, especially for children. Last year as many as 35,000 people stopped by, Jay said.
Each year they add more entertainment structures to the agritainment mix. They have a corn maze. Parents can let kids roam free in a farm-style playground complete with a hay stack for climbing, goats on a shed roof and an old tractor.
"You can watch your kids. You don't have to run after them. You don't have to entertain them. You can just relax," Jay said.
It helps to be so close to the metro area, Scott said.
"They pack the kids up and think they're going out in the country, and 15 to 20 minutes they're here," Scott said.
After the Minnesota State Fair, business ramps up as more people start to don sweatshirts and think about the harvest season.
"As soon as the State Fair is over a lot of people start thinking orchard," Jay said.
Minnetonka Orchards differs from some other orchards in that visitors don't need to stay on task if they don't want to, Jay said.
"We really want people to come here and unplug," he said.
They sell 11 varieties of apples, and the U of M has been a large factor in developing new varieties they've planted over the years. The newest variety planted by Jay and Scott is the SweeTango, a trademarked variety they can't actually call SweeTango until the apples are tested and certified as such.
"They really want to control the quality of the SweeTango," Scott said.
The apple is the sweet child of the Zestar! and Honeycrisp parent varieties.
"Behind the name is the dance between the two flavors," he said.
Those will likely be available next year. For now, visitors must content themselves with the 11 varieties already grown, and picking has already started.
The two brothers still have plenty to do to prepare.
Scott, who gave up being a design engineer at a global corporation to work full time at the farm, said the work is more about creating a lifestyle than making huge profits.
"Really haven't looked back since," Scott said. "Really can't look back because we're so busy."
Jay said profits are up over last year, and the family's to-do list isn't getting any shorter this time of year.
Jay and Scott even have their eyes on an old peg and dowel barn they hope to have rebuilt.
"We kind of like the idea, and you'll see it around, of giving things a second chance," Scott said.
