Enjoying the Fruit Loop

Enjoying the Fruit Loop. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Fruit Grower Report.

I don’t want to confuse you here but I’m going to be talking about the Fruit Loop. Not the cereal but the place. Hood River, Oregon is the location of a 35 mile stretch of road that loops its way around almost as many farms just north of Mount Hood. Here you’ll find all kinds of fresh fruits, a winery, lavender, alpacas, baked goods and more.

TAMURA: And we have a couple other value added products like Apple Valley Country Market does jams, jellies, pies, a whole bunch of different things.

That’s Nancy Tamura, chairperson of the Hood River Fruit Loop which is a non-profit consortium that is an off-shoot of the Columbia Gorge Fruit Growers.

TAMURA: And we have our Fruit Loop brochure we put out every year and we do a “celebration” from June through October so we pick so we pick a weekend in each one of those to celebrate. Wine in June, cherries in July, Gravenstein’s in August, pears in September and then we do like an heirloom apple celebration on October.

The pear celebration is coming up the weekend of September 19^th & 20^th. The Fruit Loop is now just one part of a whole Hood River destination push.

TAMURA: This year because of the economy we started trying to partner with the Chamber. Mary and her team there at the Chamber have begun to also partner with us so we can pool our money and our resources to actually bring more folks into Hood River and showcase Hood River

That’s today’s Fruit Grower Report. I’m Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.