Terhune Orchards Celebrates 50 Years of Farming

By Ilene Dube | Images courtesy of Terhune Orchards

In the expansive light-filled kitchen, farm-related art and a mural of apple trees echoes the scenery outside. Pam Mount, wearing her signature red Terhune Orchards shirt, reflects on the 50 years that have gone by since she and her husband, Gary, have run the farm. In a way her kitchen has served all of the greater Princeton community. And even if we aren’t among the 25 guests at her holiday gatherings, we’re all a part of the Mount family, thanks to all the farm has offered for half a century.

It all began in 1975 when Pam and Gary, Princeton High School sweethearts who had been living in Doylestown, Pa., saw a sign on Cold Soil Road: “For sale by owner.” Freshly back from a four-year stint in the Peace Corps, where they helped develop crops and fresh water (Gary) and taught school children (Pam) on a small island of Micronesia (population 400), they saw those initial 55 acres as the perfect place to start a commune, jokes daughter Tannwen Mount, who operates the farm with her parents and sister, Reuwai Mount Hanewald. The joke isn’t so far off: what they developed was a community center.

No one had purchased farmland to actually farm in this area for decades, Gary Mount recounts in his 2021 book A Farmer’s Life (Sweetgrass Books). “Farmers were selling their properties to developers for building subdivisions, office complexes, shopping malls — not to young couples with dreams of working the land.”

Gary, too, is always seen in barn red shirts and jackets. Although he majored in psychology at Princeton University (Class of 1966; Pam studied art at Lake Erie College in Ohio), Gary always wanted to be a farmer. He had grown up on an apple farm in West Windsor.

“My dad saw his classmates commuting to New York and, after the three of us were born (Tannwen and Reuwai have a brother, Mark, who is not involved in the farm operations), he thought having a farm would be a great opportunity for the family,” recounts Tannwen.

Gary and Pam Mount at a Peace Corps reunion.

Gary’s farming aspirations were temporarily derailed by his good grades and graduating magna cum laude from Princeton. “I found it hard to even conceive of being a farmer — such a waste of a fabulous education!” he writes, winkingly, in his memoir. Joining the Peace Corps “fit the Princeton ethos of service to others.… It also convinced Pam to marry me.” And while he didn’t learn farming at Princeton, “it was there that I learned to learn.”

The memoir, written with Gary’s signature humor, details the trials and tribulations of keeping birds away from the cherries and watermelon; trips around the world for agricultural conferences; how tastebuds vary by geographic region; the situations presented by an uncontrolled deer population; working seven days a week; black rot, botrytis, and powdery and downy mildew that ravage wine grapes; introducing the concept of “Jersey Fresh” to Gov. Tom Kean; and all the challenges faced by a farmer.

Wine grape harvest.

The secret to his success? “I was blessed with a wife unfazed by excessive risk.”

Tannwen and Reuwai (both Princeton University alumnae) were encouraged to explore the world and pursue the things that interested them. Reuwai taught at schools internationally before becoming chair of the science department at the Lawrenceville School, and Tannwen, who majored in anthropology and worked in advancement at the University of California, Berkeley, developed an interest in viticulture on the West Coast.

Both felt the pull to return to the farm, where they each have houses and families of their own. “Farmers always tell you their children are their best crop, and we’re no different,” writes Gary in his memoir.

Tannwen and Reuwai at the winery.

Reuwai is an environmental scientist who oversees the science of farming at Terhune. After three attempts at growing the apples organically, it was deemed unsustainable and IPM (integrated pest management) was implemented, using scientific tracking methods to minimize the need for pesticides. Tannwen, who introduced the Terhune Winery, is responsible for programming and marketing.

“Our model is to start small — the first tasting room opened in 2010 with six kinds of wine from 12 varieties of grapes so we could see what types of rootstocks would hold up with our soil in New Jersey winters,” she says. With temperature-controlled imported Italian tanks and state-of-the-art cooling systems, Terhune now offers 18 kinds of wine, three of which are made from the farm’s apples. While the Barn Door Café (in a former hay loft that once housed a knitting shop) offers music and food on weekends and ice cream and lunch during the day, the Farm Store remains the backbone of the business.

Fruit trees

Not only does the family grow more than 60 crops (three-quarters of which are certified organic) on what is now 250 acres (all preserved farmland), providing sustainably grown produce direct to the consumer at the farm store as well as several farmers markets, Terhune Orchards is a destination for Pick Your Own fruits, berries, and flowers; live music; wine tastings; a variety of festivals; and family and educational programs. The farm estimates it receives 700,000 visitors a year.

At this writing, the Handsome Molly Dancers were wassailing the apples, a decades-old Terhune tradition inspired by the ancient British custom of making noise on drums, whistles, bells and clackers to drive away spirits until the next year’s apples return.

“I try to be creative in planning fun things for people to do in the winter,” says Pam.

In addition to keeping the spirits away, the apples are preserved in what Tannwen describes as the only controlled atmosphere storage in New Jersey for keeping apples crunchy all year. Though it looks rustic outside, solar panels produce enough power to support the high-tech controlled storage.

And yet it’s important that the farm look like a farm, and the red peg-and-beam barns all built by Amish builders have the same historic roof lines.

Perhaps one of Terhune’s best business strategies was to introduce sweet treats. Adults who grew up visiting Terhune as children remember it for the cider slushies, pies, and baked goods, and those amazing cider donuts (introduced by Gary in 1989). The apple crisp recipe comes from Gary’s mother.

The cider is made from smaller apples than those sold for eating, and is the basis for several of Terhune’s wines. In addition, there is apple salsa, apple sauce, and apple bread, assuring that everything is put to good use.

All of the products from the bakery are like those your grandmother used to make but you might not have time to bake now, notes Pam. “This is what people miss and why they come to a country store like this.”

There are three full-time bakers responsible for the pies sold each year, 10,000 at Thanksgiving alone. (Sorry folks, Pam can’t bake all those pies herself!)

Everyone has a story about Terhune, often about coming to the farm during a low point in their lives and finding renewal in the vistas, feeding the animals, picking apples, smelling basil or fresh baked pies, and yes, the donuts. Tannwen and Pam say hardly a day goes by where they don’t hear affectionate stories from visitors who span the generations.

Terhune survived the pandemic, thanks to a full-scale effort to meet the demands of the community. In a week’s time they put the entire store’s stock onto an online platform with curbside pickup and local delivery. In fact, the measures were so successful that they needed to hire additional staff to meet the demand. “It was more important than ever to buy local and know where your food was coming from,” says Tannwen. “We wanted to continue to make sure the community could eat healthy produce, and we remained open every day.”

When restrictions eased up somewhat, a tent and a pavilion were installed outside the Farm Store so shoppers could be accommodated in the open air. “Creativity has kept the business going,” Tannwen adds.

The Mount family gathering in 2023.

Today, six of the Mount grandchildren, ages 10 to 20, are actively involved in the farm, as are cousins of Tannwen and Reuwai. If the family is well known to the community, it’s thanks to the stories about them in the quarterly newsletter Terhune distributes through area newspapers and also mails and emails to residents. These include Gary’s genial accounts of agricultural practices.

Staff fluctuates seasonally, with about 35 year-round and double that during the growing season.

Tannwen describes the “Apple Corps” philosophy: “People here work as a team, there are no titles or hierarchy. We try to bring in new, young people.” One staffer just retired after 32 years of service and still comes back as a tour guide.

Pam and Gary are known for their civic engagement — Pam served for 12 years on the Lawrence Township Council, part of that time as mayor. She recounts how her responsibilities included officiating at weddings. After a busy day working in the farm store, she’d clean up, perform the ceremony, then change back into her farm clothes and return to farming. And yet it was never exhausting. “It was easy — I didn’t have to ride the train into New York.”

In 2006 Gov. Jon Corzine appointed her to the Clean Air Council. She helped establish Farmers Against Hunger and played a key role in creating Sustainable Jersey. Pam’s additional commitments would fill a book.

Gary has held leadership roles with Howell Living History Farm, the Watershed Institute, Mercer County Board of Agriculture, the Trenton Farmers Market, and the New Jersey Farm Bureau, among many others. Both Pam and Gary are recipients of numerous awards from Outstanding Fruit Grower and Apple Grower of the Year to Outstanding Small Business and Jersey Fresh Farm to School Farmer.

“Being engaged in our towns, in efforts to improve our environment — it’s who they are,” says Tannwen.

As for the art career that began while Pam was in college, she says she never put it on a backburner. She applied her sense of color to the garden, what she calls painting without a brush, and she curates the exhibitions at the gallery on the farm.

For Tannwen and her sister, it’s been a remarkable ride. As kids their job was to pick the flowers from Pam’s flower garden that would be sold in the store. “I had my own plot,” says Tannwen. “I’m proud that I can show my kids that their family established this special place.”

“When you have a small farm, it gives the family something they can do together,” says Pam. Among her fondest memories are her daughters and niece’s weddings on the farm, and having her family of 25 gathered around the table for the holidays.

“I have had the perfect life,” says Gary, as related by Tannwen. “I love what I do every day.”

Aerial photograph of Terhune Orchards in 2023.