april-2012

spread to all of its citrus-growing
counties. The pressures forced
many longtime citrus families to
close up shop.
“We have contracted, and it’s
been painful,” Bournique says.
“These are all local, dirt-underthe-fi
ngernails kind of people.”
° ° °
I
’m on a tour of the packinghouse
at Al’s Family Farms, a 1930s-era
wooden structure modeled after
a classic red barn, on a cool,
sunny Florida morning. I bite into
INDIAN RIVER
CITRUS MUSEUM
2140 14th Ave.,
Vero Beach;
772-770-2263;
veroheritage.org/CitrusMuseum.html
*open Tues-Fri 10-4
a slice of vibrant orange honeybell,
and a trickle of juice dribbles down
my chin, tangy and sweet. It’s so
good it makes me wonder, how
could the future not be bright for
Indian River citrus?
Fred Van Antwerp agrees. “I
look for it to come back,” he tells
me. “It’s such a good product, I
can’t see it going away forever.”
Though it’s been a painful
decade, there are signs of life
all around. A steady stream of
semi trucks loaded with oranges
rumbles by on the two-lane road
in front of Al’s. At Hale Groves,
POINSETTIA GROVES
1481 U.S. Highway 1,
Vero Beach
772-562-3356;
poinsettiagroves.com
*retail shop open Mon-Fri 8-5,
Sat 8-12; packinghouse
tours by request
APRIL 2012 43
the roadside shop in Wabasso that
I’ve been visiting all my life, the
wooden bins once again overfl ow
with fruit; after being shuttered for
two years, Hale reopened under
new ownership in 2007.
“People still talk about when
it was closed, how disappointed
they were,” says Kristin DiPentima,
manager of the store, which
is located inside an old packinghouse
made cozy with wooden
timbers and white Christmas
lights, and which is still partly
surrounded by perfect rows of citrus
trees laden with fruit. “I think
this store in particular is a part
of people’s history.” She’s talking
about people like me, and I can’t
resist: I fi ll a $5 brown paper bag
with tangerines and honeybells
before I leave.
Across town, young folks
like 33-year-old Louis Schacht
of Schacht Groves are growing,
packing and shipping their family
legacies, carrying on what his
father, Henry, calls “the nicest
way of life.” And up in Brevard
County, one of the hardest hit,
holdouts like Jim and Larry
Harvey are sustaining Harvey’s
Groves, begun in 1926 by their
great-aunt and -uncle.
Like all of the remaining
roadside stands, Harvey’s airy,
white-washed store overlooking
the Indian River is an outpost from
a diff erent Florida, where bags of
citrus share shelf space with an
array of local jellies, honeys and
tropical kitsch. But they’re not
stuck in the past: Harvey’s and the
other citrus success stories have
expanded to the internet to reach
SCHACHT GROVES
6100 12th St., Vero Beach;
800-355-0055;
schachtgroves.com
*grove tours by appointment;
email: lschacht@schachtgroves.com
to arrange
} } }
GO MAGAZINE
a growing percentage of customers
purchasing gift fruit online.
“We’re trying to keep up with
the times, and so far it’s going
good,” Jim Harvey says. “I can see
us being here at least another 10 or
15 years. At least.”
Across the district, membership
in the citrus league has
stabilized, and at research centers
around the state, scientists are
doggedly searching for solutions to
citrus canker. And perhaps most
encouraging, the fi ve- or six-year
lull when farmers didn’t replace
the trees they had lost seems to
have ended.
“We are replanting new trees,”
says Cheryl Roseland of Countryside,
“and crossing our fi ngers.”
° ° °
T
he sun is starting
to set, its last rays
setting afl ame the
golden oranges sagging
from a small patch of trees
along the gravel road at Countryside.
I meander up one row
and down another, stopping to
inhale the cool winter air, and
then I smell it. My brain must
be playing tricks, I think, it’s too
early for blossoms. Yet there it is
again, that sweet, wild aroma I’d
know anywhere.
Behold, just a few feet away,
a spray of orange blossoms
decorates the end of a twig, brimming
with the promise of the fruit
they will become, and the hope
that years from now, Indian River
kids will still know that sweet perfume
of spring.
SULLIVAN
VICTORY GROVES
988 U.S. Highway 1,
Rockledge;
800-672-6431;
sullivancitrus.com