Gilcrease Orchard shows desert’s bounty, beauty

Drive by Gilcrease Orchard on a day when it's closed to the public and it's more serene than a Zen garden. It may be in the middle of North Las Vegas' suburban sprawl, but no voices can be heard and only an occasional vehicle speeds down one of the bordering roads.

Return, though, on a Tuesday, Thursday or Saturday and you'll hear and see families scrambling across the exceptionally fertile ground to pick tomatoes and zucchini, while retirees gather dozens of cucumbers for putting up pickles.

There's even more going on behind the scenes. Mark Ruben, who is in his third season as director of the 67-acre orchard , is continually evaluating its crops and replacing those that produce more than he can sell, experimenting with exotics and planting fruits and vegetables that are in high demand.

The orchard's roots stretch back to the 1920s ranch owned by the Gilcrease family. Determined to preserve this little patch of agricultural land for future generations, Ted Gilcrease, who died at age 87 in 2003, established a nonprofit foundation in 1997. Guided by a board of directors, it is responsible for ensuring the orchard survives him and his brother, Bill, who's 92, as the thousands of acres around it are being transformed from wide-open desert to cheek-by-jowl suburbia.

Ruben, who has a horticulture degree from Brigham Young University, has worked in the valley since 1989, primarily at golf courses. During a recent impromptu orchard tour, he casually reviewed a laundry list of challenges to maintain financial stability.

He decreased the amount of zucchini grown, from 11 rows to three, and still has more than he can sell. He's experimenting with asparagus, garlic, Yukon Gold potatoes, pecans, various squashes, and root crops including carrots, beets and sweet potatoes, the latter of which have been particularly successful.

Other crops have grown well but not sold well, including edamame, leeks and tomatillos, so they've been dropped.

Some are particularly popular; Ruben said there are people who come to the orchard solely for okra and green tomatoes, which are virtually impossible to find in local supermarkets. Others -- home canners Ruben calls "the professionals" -- buy pounds and pounds of cucumbers for pickling. Pears, Ruben said, are "one of the best things we grow." Pluots and apriums are in the future.

But the highlight remains pumpkin season in the fall. Several varieties are planted; the small ones, he said, are popular for school field trips, while families can pick the larger ones for their jack-o'-lanterns.

One of the biggest problems Ruben faced when he started was the orchard's 4,800 apple trees, which he described as "way too many."

The problem was that Ted Gilcrease had planted primarily Gala apples, Ruben said. They're an increasingly popular variety, but they ripen in the summer in Southern Nevada, before the frost that would put color on their cheeks (leaving them with the visual appeal of a Golden Delicious), and before the fall season when most people expect new-crop apples. Even at $1 a pound, the orchard grew far more apples than it could sell.

So previous managers added a cider-making operation. The cider is a great product, Ruben said, except for one thing: It takes 16 pounds of apples to make a gallon of cider, and they were selling the cider for $4 a gallon.

"No wonder we're going bankrupt," he thought. He raised the price to $4 per half-gallon, but "we're still not making a lot."

Ruben's gradually replacing some of the Gala trees with others that ripen earlier, some later, and he plans to give some of the excess apples to Three Square food bank.

This is the first year for Arkansas black apples, Ruben noted. "They're good for pies, and the chefs go crazy for them."

Actually, local chefs might go crazy for many of the offerings at Gilcrease, and that market for some of its produce is being developed. Doug Taylor, executive pastry chef for Mario Batali's B&B Hospitality Group in Las Vegas and a leader in the locavore movement, said the group buys Gilcrease's zucchini blossoms, cantaloupe, apples, pears and apricots.

"We get a lot of stuff," Taylor said. "Whatever the season -- whatever he's selling."

Since the decline of the valley's agricultural concerns of decades past, "local produce" has mostly referred to what was brought to local farmer's markets by growers from Arizona, southern Utah and California. But Taylor said Ruben is changing that.

"Mark has brought that place back to life," he said. "He's really worked closely with bringing in local food -- and I mean 'local,' because it is within the city -- and making it a part of the community's lifestyle."

Taylor said he has seen research findings that the average person's "fresh" food is a minimum of five days old.

"By having local farms like Gilcrease, you can have something that is picked the same day and eat it in a meal, so the nutrient value is at its highest point," Taylor said.

While the orchard appears headed in a promising direction, the nonprofit foundation that oversees the property has encountered a few rocky spots along the way, most notably the sale of 40 acres between it and Arbor View High School in 2005. The Review-Journal reported at the time that the foundation was losing $200,000 a year on the operation, according to the attorney representing the foundation and developer in an appearance before the Clark County Commission.

The parcel was sold near the height of the building boom but remains undeveloped, and today, orchard supporters gaze at it with gimlet eyes.

"The way it was formerly managed, I can see why they thought that was an option," said Corinne Escobar, president of the foundation's board of directors. "I don't necessarily agree that it was the only option, but I see why they did that."

She conceded that selling the land at the height of its value was a boost for the foundation. Escobar and Rubin both say that regaining the land remains a dream at present. "We are investigating the option," Escobar said.

"We see our role as to follow Bill and Ted Gilcrease's dream," Escobar added. The foundation's bylaws charge the board to preserve it in perpetuity, beautify it and provide educational experiences for the public.

"We're using that as our road map," Escobar said.

It was, Escobar noted, the Gilcreases' "cherished dream" to give children the chance to "harvest directly from the source and experience what (vegetables and fruit) taste like when they're fresh off the vine and the tree. That's what they knew growing up."

And in case you're wondering why it's so much more difficult to grow, well, much of anything in your backyard, one difference is that, because of water in the area, the land near the orchard is far less hard than it is in most of the valley.

"You can dig here without a pick," Ruben noted.

"The family did an extraordinary thing to purchase land around natural springs," Escobar said. "They captured that area and that's pretty much what's left of this very unique fertile area of the valley."

There's wildlife, too, drawn by the food, water and cover. In one barricaded-off corner of the orchard, a pair of Western burrowing owls recently had a pair of offspring.

And the orchard continually evolves. Ruben said it's not certified organic because he still struggles with Bermuda grass and has to use Roundup until he can eradicate it. Eventually, he'd like to grow clover or vetch between the rows of trees, both to act as groundcover and to attract honeybees. He's adding wood chips in some areas to keep weeds and dust down and moisture in, and has developed symbiotic relationships with local landscapers -- free mulch for him, free disposal for them.

Community partnerships continue to grow, educational programs are being planned and sources of income are always being considered. The orchard has sold hot cider at community events and has experimented with apple-cider doughnuts, which Ruben deems "like heaven."

Other plans, Escobar said, include the planting of a rose garden in memory of Ted and Bill Gilcrease's mother, Elda, who hung onto the ranch at the beginning of the Great Depression even after her husband gave up on desert farming and returned to California.

"She stuck it out," Escobar said. "She deserves some recognition."

In a 2002 interview, Ted Gilcrease explained why the North Las Vegas orchard that evolved from his family ranch should be preserved for future generations:

"I've always been interested in public service, and hundreds of people told me the orchard was important to them. So we expanded the orchard so these people could come out, get away from the city, pick their fruit, pick their vegetables. Some of the people tell me the recreation is more important than what they pick."

As the foundation looks forward, it doesn't fail to look back.

"We feel our stewardship includes the community remembering this pioneer family," Escobar said. "We want this orchard to be an example of their legacy. ... And do what we can to educate the community about this wonderful gem that's sitting in the middle of the valley."

Contact reporter Heidi Knapp Rinella at hrinella@ reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0474.