One, two, three, four.

Get my shoes on at the door.

Five, six, seven, eight.

Feels great.

I'm gonna sign up to do and guys aren't gonna do about to do what they do.

Yeah.

Look at this guy with the beautiful color about the and just for me he's gonna share it with another I got to show to get.

I want to finish.

I'll take a look at that beautiful morning that turns to a beautiful evening and look at the big beautiful light and then people wanna see the Carmello with me.

That's right.

Well now that it is officially fall, we are talking all things fall across Michigan and there is so much to do.

We couldn't show you everything in one week, but we do have a good sampling for this week's show.

We are going to be heading to Eden Springs Park up in Benton Harbor, where they are doing some spooky train rides.

You're going to want to make sure you get your tickets for that coming up.

We're also going to be checking out Unity Gardens.

They have some events coming up through the fall and all the way into Christmas time So you want to make sure you check out that as well.

As you know, you can still stop by and get some of their vegetables to be sure to do that.

First up, it's time for pumpkin picking and apple picking.

We're heading to kurta sunrise orchards in Goshen, Indiana.

And I have to tell you, the apples are delicious.

Take a look.

Well, it's a century old tradition here at Kerger Sunrise Orchards.

We're so excited to be here.

We have Molly with us.

Who is part of it?

Me generation.

I am the fifth generation.

It's amazing how I mean, seriously, how did this all get started to begin with?

So it was would be my great, great grandfather.

That's right It was actually in 1922.

So next year will be our hundred years.

We'll celebrate.

So he was had a furniture store downtown.

And when they came, they came over with like the Studebakers and the Studebakers wanted actually to build, you know, go over, build wagon wheel drive.

And they said, hey, you guys want to do that?

And we said, no, we're still not.

We're going to farm.

They came over and they were farmers over.

I don't know, where are they, Ohio or somewhere?

Are they kind of migrated over?

And they said, no, we're farmers.

You know, we lik to grow this little orchard.

So they had some trees on 7th Street at the house.

So it was before 1922, actually, some really started because they had a few apple trees on Seventh Street and he had a furniture store downtown Goshen, and then it burned down.

And so he's like, well, we'll get this little plot of land out here by the Elkhart River on the south side of Goshen.

So 1922 is when it officially started climbing trees.

And how many acres do you guys have now?

Oh, gosh.

Well, we farm probably about seven hundred acres.

And we we rent from a few people.

But we have yeah, we we grow other than apples.

We grow sweet corn, cabbage, winter squash, summer squash, pumpkins, peaches, broccoli, cauliflower, delicious.

Along with the apples, of course.

So, yeah, we do a lot of different things.

Is it fair to say, though, that this time of the year is the busiest for you?

Oh, yeah.

This is our prime time.

Everybody wants to come out because we have apple picking, pumpkin picking, and it's just a lot of fun.

Fun to do creatures, though.

And you have to you pick.

What are you guys picking right now?

I know it's kind of getting towards the end of the apple picking season here.

Actually, we pick all the way up until the first week in November.

Oh, well, we have some really good apples late, so apple varieties don't all come on at the same time.

So we start beginning of September with our first three varieties with Macintosh, Gayla and Honeycrisp, which everybody misses Honeycrisp.

They go, you know, let's go pick Honeycrisp, but it only lasts about a week and there are really early apples you got to pass.

Also, what are we going to go on to try here today?

I'm excited.

So we've got right now we're picking Jonathan Cortland, Red Delicious and Golden Delicious.

So one of my favorites started a few, got a few late varieties coming up Fujio start next weekend.

And then we have Gold Rush, which is an Apple Purdue actually came up with.

Nice.

So a lot of these big universities.

Which is ironic because after being beaten by Notre Dame, there won't be any gold rush to produce.

So no one's come to court just because I just read a sports joke going in and out.

All right.

All right.

Now, you know really what it really is for you.

There is the backscratcher.

I'm not sure I want the apples and oranges anymore.

That would work as a backscratcher.

So we use these to pick the higher trees for the you pick the the higher ones on the trees, because we're really tall trees They are.

And they're actually dwarf trees.

So they're I mean, the newer varieties that we grow used to be huge, you know, big long branches, the oak trees.

But these are all what we grow now, because you can do them closer together, get more of a smaller plot.

And I think what you need is how to do this right way.

Yeah.

Can get the climate like underneath.

All right.

And then you got to pull it.

So you might have to go.

There you go.

See then.

And my love for that this year.

Yeah.

How is it done this year?

It's been really good.

We were nervous about that spring because we had snow on the blossoms.

Last year we got hurt really bad.

So they put a lot of blooms on and then actually thinned them a little bit this year.

And so we've been fortunate to have a really good crop, big juicy apples, but not really small this year.

They're really just a nice size.

So just good quality apples this year stuff.

So it's fun for families to come out here and take.

And what are the varieties that they can take a look, because a lot of people think the Apple stuff earlier in the day.

Right.

So they change throughout the se the best way to do is go in, come into our farm market or on the weekends.

We have an information booth that you can stop at.

We have bags for you.

We have a map.

And then we show varieties already we have the pickers.

We have little red wagons for you with you guys have a little surprise here.

And so you don't have to you don't have to pay in advance or anything.

We don't buy the pounds.

You just bring it back to the market.

And there are dollar forty nine a pound.

OK, so in the best way to pick apples is kind of work your way out and in.

Right, because we were talking about this a lot drop apples on their own.

Yeah.

So I mean, it's good to you know, if you have lower ones, get those before we use the sticks.

So we try and keep the sticks for just the higher ones because they will knock a lot of apples off the trees.

But you just want to come in and you just twist and then pull, kind of pull up and then it comes right off, you know, take a bite.

So this is a Puji.

So this will be ready by Friday It's going to eat it.

Yup.

Oh, yeah.

It'll be good.

Good.

We did.

We heard was really good.

Exactly.

I'd like to hear horror.

Finish it.

No, I'm just kidding.

I'm a solid perfect.

I'm always taking this on our way to the pumpkin patch which is another great thing that you guys have here, especially for families.

But one of the things that I pick up over here is the corn maze.

Tell us about that.

Yeah, we have it for the school field trips during the week, just a little quick five minute walk, just so they can experience walking through corn.

That's clear to them.

And then on the weekends, we just let the general public use it to when they're out here, which I always think is one of the coolest things in Indiana.

We drive by a lot of cornfields.

And if they don't look as tall until you actually are standing next to them, then I realized how short I really am.

Well, I want to go take a look through and they want you to meet me on the other side, me to the other side.

I not to get lost or if I if I yell out just, you know, help me out.

No, no, no.

OK.

I know world.

Go home.

Oh, no.

The fork in the road, I'm going to go to the right.

There is.

I played once or twice with, hey, I made it out of the maze, it wasn't too bad.

I will say when you're here at Creatures, you might want to bring some mud boots because it is a little bit muddy because work on the farm.

We're here on the orchard, so.

Hey, Dave.

Hello.

I made it out.

Fun fact that corn is only five feet high.

I actually didn't bring the right shoes.

I'm like here.

So I'm stuck out here.

And so we've also got the pumpkin picking as well.

So do people just.

I've never picked a pumpkin.

You haven't?

Heavens no.

I know.

Really, just like I wanted to show my talk of the bees.

What is the deep freeze freeze?

This very center field trips.

These are buzzing.

You don't swat them because they're no more likely to senior.

So you just freeze and they'll land on.

You walk around and then fly away usually.

So we can certainly do my of pumpkins here.

We do, yes.

So we've got a little Gord's we've got Jack Layton pumpkins.

We've got white pumpkins called Casper Pumpkins and then like over the friendly ghost.

And then back at the market, we've got heirloom pumpkins, which are kind of the fun.

That's kind of the trend right now with pumpkins.

They're just all different sorts of the ones they have on top of them, different ones, because they're squatty.

You can like build a pyramid with them.

Yeah.

So those are back in the market.

But most of these are the Jacalyn or the Casper Pumpkins now.

No.

Can people come out?

They can come out every day and pick pumpkins and apples.

We have free hay rides on the weekends until Halloween So if you don't want to walk out here, you're more than welcome to during the week.

But weekends, the hayride just kind of continuously goes and drops you at the pumpkin patch in the corn maze, and then you load up your pumpkins and go back to the market and you're taking more than one pumpkin.

You probably want to bring a wagon with you.

Yeah.

I mean, to help you.

Yeah.

Well, we'll help you load them on the hay.

Right And then when you get off at the market, we've got the wagons.

You can stick them.

I just always carry them all.

Oh, yeah, that's a great idea.

We used to have a contest of like who?

Who, who can carry like the most pumpkin.

You can do a boxing match.

Oh, wait, freeze.

Sorry.

Oh, you're having something that you guys have been around for so many years.

Again, we're in Goshen, Indiana, at Kurta Sunrays Origins.

And this is just been awesome.

I love that this has been a family tradition and and how you guys have passed it down through generations.

We're working on it.

We just enjoy doing it.

And hopefully our kids one day will grow up.

They run around and you'll see them here.

We're going to do a little little jobs right now.

Eventually, they'll be driving the tractor when they get older and when they're like 12, maybe 15 when it's a country thing.

All right, thanks.

Thank you.

Today we're in Benton Harbor, Michigan, at Aidin Springs Park for a creepy train ride.

Sorry, Debbie, but that's OK. That's OK. Well, before we talk about the train ride, which we are super excited about.

Let's talk a little bit about the history here, because there's so much history.

There really is.

OK, all right.

Well, in Springs' Park, it was part of the house of David the house.

David is a local religious colony that started here in Benton Harbor in nineteen oh.

Three people were curious.

They were coming to check them out.

Or are these people all about.

So they decided to start entertaining them.

They started serving ice cream and playing music and stuff like that.

And that became so popular that they purchased this property and decided to open a park for people to come.

It was a source of income for the colony.

It was, you know, very, very popular.

It opened in nineteen oh eight.

Wow.

OK. Yeah.

Long time, no.

Until the mid 1970s.

The House of David always ran steam engines.

Originally they ran small Cagney's steam engines.

Later on, they they moved up to some bigger ones.

We're going to be running a gas powered one today because they're easier to start.

And our steam engines are having some maintenance done.

So they'll be all ready at some point.

What we have today is we have a loop that goes around It's about a quarter mile of track, which will be expanded hopefully in the next year or so.

That'll be great.

Yeah, we're building a rebuilding the trestle to get across to the other side and probably double the length of it.

But we decided every year we're going to have holida rides, we're going to have Christmas and Halloween.

So these are the Halloween rides we're in the process of decorating.

They feel very festive here.

It's not all out yet by any means.

But there's a lot more on this property, too, not just the train.

There's other things to explore, too.

Yes, we have a campground over here behind you.

We have baseball during the summer.

We're normally open from Memorial Day through Labor Day on weekends, Saturdays and Sundays.

People can come out.

They can walk through the park.

It's free to walk through the park.

There's a trail that goes down into the ravine.

We have pictures out so people can see what it looked like when the park was open.

Thinking about that, when we came in, we saw these log cabins.

Yeah.

And you said that they're over 100 years old.

Yes.

So they're like original?

Yeah.

The log cabins are.

Yeah, they're all original.

I don't think that little white cabins.

Original.

Yeah.

Basically all the all the buildings that you see here are original.

We're trying to save all the ones that we can and working on them.

But yeah, the log cabins, they're fantastic.

People remember staying in them.

They come down.

Oh, yeah, we stayed in that one when we were kids, you know, on memory.

And people can still rent those, too.

They can.

Yes, they can rent the log cabins.

We have more a little bit more modern, smaller cabins and the tent camping area.

And we have an actual house over here that we can rent out.

Which three bedrooms?

Two.

And that's an original piece of architecture as well.

Speaking of the house there, there's a house over here that we're going to pass on to you, right?

Is that original?

Yeah.

Yeah.

The decorations on it was right.

I just like that.

That's a prop, right?

Well, we can we can we go check out the.

Let's go have a look.

Yes.

When can people bring their families out to this?

Well, we're opening this weekend will be open Saturday and Sunday from five to nine p.m. and then we'll be open the weekend after that same hours, five to nine p.m. Halloween weekend.

We're going to be open on Friday night and Saturday night because the local areas have trick or treating and how they order this.

But each night, five to nine.

And how much is it for the train?

Right.

It's four dollars per person.

Under three are through our free.

OK, so.

Yeah.

Come on out.

Bring your bring your costumes.

That's all I'm done.

Oh, yeah.

It's a lot of fun.

Shengli Yes, it is.

CASHOLA.

So we appreciate that.

Thank you.

I know we talked a little bit about the history, but you're saying you actually have a little kind of creepy things around there.

Can you tell us a little bit about the whole menat before we get on the toilet?

What kind of creepy things do you know?

How scary.

Oh, OK. You just might start might startle you or it's like you just see somebody walk by and you think it's a person and it's not, you know, scared .

You'll see people see people looking out the windows of this tower and the old building and there's nobody in there because we don't let anybody in there.

Well, I'm kind of glad we're taking the ride during the day.

Exactly.

Not at the back of the train.

Is it family friendly?

Yes, totally.

Oh, yeah.

There's not anything that's going to jump out and scare little kids or anything, you know.

But yeah, I want a bit about the train.

Oh, yes.

This is our we call it the S.W.

seven.

It's a switcher and.

John, it's primarily made of other parts of other things besides looks suspiciously like the back of a dryer.

Yeah, they're pretty.

Yeah, it came to us just as an engine and a frame, basically.

So we put all all the metal on it.

It's not original to this one, is not?

No, but it is But the cars are.

Yeah.

These are original coaches.

Yes.

Yes.

And you can just I mean, you can see.

Yeah.

Yeah, they're here.

Yeah, they're original.

These were made by the Bosky family.

Bosky Carriage Company was big here in Benton Harbor.

About a hundred years ago.

And so they've been around these tracks many, many, many times.

Yeah, we are ready to do.

Ready?

Yeah.

So you can sit anywhere you like.

Well, most of the gardening season is coming to an end, but things are still happening here at Unity Gardens in South Bend, Indiana.

We're checking things out today and what's coming up.

And we have with us a whole crew that are already dressed and ready for Halloween.

Look at this.

Love the costumes.

Didn't know it was costume day.

You could say I'm coming in from.

Oh, what's that?

What's that, a Madeleine or something?

Where's the raincoat We go.

There we go.

So we have with this Michael, Emily and Zeb, who are all working here at our Unity Gardens.

Emily, tell us a little bit about what's coming up with the spooktacular.

Yeah, so this is going to be our second annual spooktacular event on October twenty ninth from six to nine PM .

And we are going to be transforming our entire seven acre flagship garden into a family friendly carnival type celebration with lots of fun activities for kids and for families.

And then we will be doing a haunted trail.

So you will get to walk the garden and experience the story of the crazed farmer who used to live here , that you are you're the crazy.

Maybe we missed some days, but no age group is geared towards.

So we're definitely making it a family friendly event.

There's going to be lots of activities for kids.

The holiday trail is going to be a little spooky, definitely, but a lot of fun.

Very, very light and enjoyable.

Nothing too scary for sure.

And now, do people need to register ahead of time or can they just show up?

So the event is totally free and open to the public.

So it doesn't require any tickets or registration.

We just invite folks to come out between those three hours and have a good time.

And you guys, have you guys did this last year.

How was it last year?

What was the turnout?

So we actually we had it in twenty nineteen.

So we didn't have it in twenty twenty.

But we had a great turnout.

The weather was terrible that day.

Yeah, but we we didn't have a roof on our welcome center yet.

We didn't have floors in there, but they were able to move everything inside and still have a really good time.

So even in the case of inclement weather, you know, we're still going to be out here having fun and sharing the story of unity gardening's with our neighbors.

That's awesome.

In costume and costumes, there is going to be a judge costume contest.

Yes.

So we encourage everybody to put on your best costume and come ready to win.

What was what was your favorite costume in?

Twenty nineteen.

So I wasn't here in twenty nineteen.

I'm trying to remember who won.

It was Mitch's granddaughter.

I know, but how managers won.

But I don't know what she was.

I'm not sure what she was.

Yeah.

We have some big ideas for you.

I was talking about the Vine lady who is, you know, dressed all in avai, walking on stilts.

Maybe not the safest place to walk on stilts here.

If you're good, still walk around here.

Yeah.

Yes, we definitely encourage garden themed costumes.

You know, it might it might give you a little edge you know.

Well, there's lots more going on.

Let's take a look around and talk about what else is happening.

Awesome.

So I think Community Gardens is pretty award winning itself, but Sara Stewart, your executive director, is nominated for the Earth kind of war with USA Today.

Yes And people can still tell us what that means.

So she was nominated anonymously.

We don't know who gave her this wonderful honor.

But you all ou there are welcome to vote every single day.

It's for the Earth Kind Award that would give us at Unity Gardens, Sara, a thousand dollars.

And I believe people who both get some sort of reward, too.

But what's really nice about this is that it gets the word out across the United States.

And we can share this wonderful idea and this concept of free and dignified food with everybody in the United States, which would be a huge benefit to.

Absolutely.

And that's a huge accomplishment.

I mean, even just being nominated and being one of the finalists.

Yeah, I think there's only two to the minus two in the category.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So VOH, every single day you can vote once a day for the rest of October and October yet.

So and you guys have things coming up after October two.

You were talking about some Christmas of Christmas is my thing.

So Sparkle's izin.

So let me magically turn into Christmas karet.

Oh so we yeah.

My Christmas hat.

So we are having a Christmas bazaar and that we hope will be able to be inside of our building because it should be nearing completion And so we'll have local vendors from around the city as well as our own products there.

Oh, yes.

And it will be a really wonderful way to come an check out what's going on at Unity Gardens and also to get some Christmas shopping done and to support local businesses and artisans.

That'll be December 5th.

And we're we're thinking approximately like noon to six.

So it'll be a Sunday afternoon.

OK. And people can get more information about that on your Facebook page website.

Yeah.

Check our social media and we'll be posting more about that as the event draws near.

But yeah, start taking away your Christmas cash because we've got some for you.

And speaking a welcome center, you guys are starting to have more events now.

W are telling us that you have actually a farm to be serious.

That's coming up.

Absolutely.

So here at Unity Gardens, we're not just about growing the food.

We're also about doing educational classes.

So in our new welcome center, we are going to be doing a farm to program.

It's a six week series of educational classes, basically.

Now, you grew the foo are you going to do with it?

So we're going to talk about Canning to talk about.

I have no idea what to do once I have all that.

Absolutely.

As much this year, because I was like, what am I going to do with all these tomatoes?

Who's got the time to keep eating all these salads It's been a great growing season.

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

So we're going to start with Chef Patsie coming from Ivy Tech to do a class on Canning, followed up with dehydrating and freezing because a lot of people are a little scared, a little timid about canning.

So, you know, not not everybody has that kind of access to canning equipment.

So try me out in a farming freezing and dehydrating is also very useful.

We're also going to teach a class on getting to the roots, another one on spicing up your foods.

We're going to do one about crunching on cruciferous.

So cruciferous vegetables and my favorite these squash class, my so I love squash is so delicious and so versatile.

I didn't know any favorite.

Oh, this is the reason why you even had the rights to come to the class How can people register?

So again, no need to register.

It's free to the public.

There isn't Eventbrite page.

You can go up just so we kind of have an idea of the head count.

Sure.

But it's free to the public.

So you just come on Monday night, starting November 1st from six to seven, and it's going to be at the welcome center.

We hope.

We hope.

Yeah.

And also be outdoors.

Exactly.

If not, we'll be outdoors.

We'll have other arrangements made, but we hope doing the welcome center for these classes.

That's wonderful.

And we're standing in the middle of unity gardens.

And there is still stuff growing.

Absolutely.

What can people still come out and grab?

So we have an abundance of kale.

That is just amazing.

We've got these marvelous mustard greens, luscious lettuc I cannot begin to tell you this, but this is so beautiful, Nosworthy nasturtium.

I had salad, so delicious.

We've got tomatoes still.

We've got hot peppers.

We've got sweet peppers, eggplants, eggplant, still some tomatoes hanging on.

Okra still come in.

There's even Blackberries.

Yes.

And raspberries and raspberries, too.

And the squashes, there are some winter squash us that are still Pochi, still some herbs on beets, beets, turnip.

There's a there's a lot of berries, a lot.

But you still need volunteers to kind of the end of the season clean up, too.

Absolutely.

So every Tuesday morning like today, we have our routine volunteers come out from 9:00 a.m. to noon and they just help us get everything around the garden.

We cannot do it without help from everybody like you in the community.

So they come out every morning and they help us get everything finished.

Right now, we're putting the garden to bed, so we've got Moltz going in on on beds that have not they're not they're done for the season.

So yeah.

So, yeah, volunteers are always acceptable.

You can always email us and we can set up volunteer times.

If you've got a business.

Do you want to do something?

Yeah.

If you want to do some like team building activities, we can totally accommodate that Even small groups like to people come on out.

The more the merrier.

Like any any help that we can get, we totally would love.

Unity Gardens is just such a pivotal piece of our or of our community here.

So I'm so grateful that you guys are new here and are growing.

Yeah, absolutely.

You know, taking root.

Taking root.

There we go.

We're full of jokes at everybody.

Check it out.

You can visit their Facebook page or on their website and see all the awesome things that you guys have coming up for the fall.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Well, that's it for today's show again.

There's so much going on across Michiana.

This is just a small sample, but we want to know what you have going on for the fall and into the holiday season.

What are some of your family traditions?

I found that being a part of experience.

Michiana, some of those that we shared are now becoming our family traditions, too.

So make sure you share them on our social media.

You can use the hashtag experience.

Michiana, we want to head out there and check those out so we can share them with the Michiana community.

Thanks for watching.

We'll see you back next week.

Experience Michiana is made possible in part by the Community Foundation of St. Joseph County and the Indiana Arts Commission, which received support from the state of Indiana and the National Endowment for the Arts.

This wnit, local production has been made possible in part by viewers like you.

Thank you.