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Both products of Northeastern apple valleys – he’s from Concord and she’s from Binghamton, New York – Doug Morin and Emily Meacham wanted the home they would make for themselves to be on an apple orchard. One problem: they were looking for something in the northern half of either New Hampshire or Vermont, and there were no established orchards for sale.

Instead of a mom-and-pop-sized orchard, they settled on a former beef and dairy farm that was much larger than the parcel they had envisioned. The fact that Tellman Hill Farm in Bethlehem, New Hampshire is now producing fruit from hundreds of trees is a testament to the determination and flexibility of its owners, as well as robust support from 91��Ƭ�� Extension.

The Extension specialists who help support such ventures say that their work does more than support one family and enhance the local food supply chain; it can serve as a benefit to numerous other businesses in the region.

Apple Kids

Morin is trained as a wildlife biologist and Meacham is a forester. They met while both were working for the state of Vermont, and one thing they shared in common was a love of New England’s most prolific fruit.

“There’s a little bit of childhood nostalgia — apple orchards are neat,” Morin says. Meacham adds that there’s practical benefits as well.

“We knew we wanted to be farmers and Doug doesn’t like bending over for vegetables,” she says. “We both have had an interest in apple trees for a long time.”

They like the agritourism aspect of pick-your-own operations as well as the flexibility to experiment with other products, such as chickens, decorative gourds, and cut flowers. Their plan was for Meacham to keep her position as a forester, which meant they needed to look for a property within driving distance of her office in northern Vermont. 

Their dream was a cozy little orchard with established trees. Their reality would require them to build that dream.

Located on high ground, as the name suggests, the Tellman Hill Farm was a retired dairy and beef farm when Morin and Meacham found it. Easements on the property meant that it had to be used for agricultural purposes, which was just fine by them. The biggest problem, aside from its lack of apple trees, was its size. Tellman Hill Farm is 60 acres, a larger bite of orchard than they were initially planning to chew.

“When we had the opportunity and this property came on our radar, that caused us to scale up our operation,” Morin says. They set out looking for a hobby farm and ended up with a commercial-size property.

They wasted no time bringing in expert help.

Meacham and Morin bought the property in 2019. Two other important things happened that year. The first was that they placed their first call to 91��Ƭ�� Extension, and soon thereafter walked their property with Heather Bryant, fruit and vegetable production field specialist.

“Heather was really the first person we talked through our ideas,” Meacham says. “She was the first person to give us confidence to go forward.”

The other important thing was ordering their first batch of trees — 500 of them. An order of that size has to be placed two years in advance, and those trees were planted in 2021, the same year they formed an LLC for their business.

So, smooth sailing? Hardly, but they have survived so far, with a little help.

The new orchardists, with their combined expertise in wildlife and trees, were unusually well-suited to grow fruit in the woods of northern New Hampshire. Even so, their learning curve was steep, and with the size of their operation — they now have more than 1,000 apple trees — there was no such thing as a small problem.

Tellman Hill Farm’s early challenges included drought, wind damage, mole and vole pressure, and learning the nuances of integrated pest management.

One particular episode captures what Extension services does for an operation like Tellman Hill. Meacham noticed some strange symptoms in their seedlings during leaf-out one year, and called in Will Hastings, Coos County field specialist, for a look. Hastings referred the case to Bo Liu, director of 91��Ƭ��’s Plant Diagnostics Lab, who confirmed that a fungus was to blame. Next up was Jeremy DeLisle, fruit specialist, who shared how other growers manage the fungus, while Renuka Mathur, soil health specialist for Extension, gave them tips for improving soil health.

“That was a game-changer for us,” Meacham said.

Thanks to the early diagnosis and intervention, those trees were saved. Had they ignored the initial symptoms, the fungus would likely have killed the young trees, the new orchardists would have had to wait two years for new saplings to be ready, and those replacement trees would likely have also succumbed to the fungus, setting them back two more years.

The Game Changers

Extension’s expertise, offered free of charge, represents a significant investment into Morin and Meacham’s business. The experts so eagerly offer their expertise because the benefits extend well beyond Tellman Hill.

Hastings notes that Extension helped the orchard to secure a federal Regional Food Systems Infrastructure grant to build a commercial kitchen.

“This facility could be used by other farms in the region to provide value-added products,” Hastings notes. But that’s only one of the ways the orchard might boost its neighbors.

Hastings suggests that official estimates of the impact of orchard-based businesses are undervalued. That belief is supported by a recent study by Cornell University, which measured the benefit of New York State’s apple farms to be $574 million in 2016, 21% higher than the state’s official estimate. The difference was due to the failure of the official studies to consider how those businesses spend their income, not just how much they make.

Jeremy DeLisle, fruit production field specialist for Extension, is trying to get a firm handle on how to estimate the economic value of New Hampshire’s apple growers, who sell a range of related products such as cider doughnuts.

“You’d be surprised how many doughnuts some of these apple farms sell; too bad they don’t grow on trees,” DeLisle says. The income side of a New Hampshire orchard’s financial records is diverse and sometimes surprising; their expenses are just as interesting, he adds. The farmers are buying fuel, packaging, fertilizer,  and other supplies from local vendors, and are injecting yet more money into the local economy through the form of paychecks.

“If we think about farms and the local economy, there are so many impacts that ripple through,” DeLisle says.

Orchards are more economically generative than the typical farm because of agritourism, notes Gail McWilliam Jellie, agricultural program assistant for Extension. Pick-your-own operations are probably the original form of agritourism, McWilliam Jellie notes, but orchards go well beyond that, with lodging, weddings, field dinners, tractor- or horse-drawn wagon rides, petting farms, food trucks, and the list goes on.

When people come to a New Hampshire orchard for one of these experiences, DeLisle says, they often come from out of state, and they are almost certainly going to engage with other local businesses while they’re here.

And yet, even those approaches might not catch everything, adds Jesse Wright, another field specialist for Extension. She asserts that orchards and similar agricultural operations provide an economically significant benefit to the local environment and ecology through their land stewardship.

“I think that is an important measure to include and will continue to increase in value as we see increasingly erratic weather patterns and stronger storms,” Wright says.

2026 is going to be a pivotal year for Tellman Hill, one in which the orchard will start welcoming guests to their own farm stand and their own orchard, fulfilling a dream they’ve each held for years.

“It’s been great to have the support of 91��Ƭ�� and folks that say, ‘Here’s what we can do for you,’ or, ‘What do you need?’” Morin says.