labor of love bears fruit

His route went through his Catalina neighborhood, which made watering the crops and picking the apples between shifts convenient. He was making about $3.50 an hour with Amphitheater Public Schools, but the apple orchard was laying the groundwork for the future.

Almost 30 years later, the students he took to and from school have grown up, and Howard is retired from bus driving, but Howard's Orchard still sits on a plot of land in Catalina near the Pinal County line.

This year, as usual, it opened for the season at the end of June and will remain open until Thanksgiving, unless customers have picked all the fruit and vegetables by then. The property is lined with about 300 trees that produce peaches, walnuts, pecans, apricots and multiple varieties of apples. It's a far cry from the two apple trees that started it all.

The farm also produces cucumbers, blackberries and tomatoes.

A testament to hard work

Howard's Orchard, which he built from the ground up using no pesticides, is a testament to what discipline and hard work can accomplish.

You can tell it's a labor of love because Howard's 70 years drift into the leaves and berries of his orchard as he walks the irrigation lines, reels off tales about his day's work and speaks of the free labor the birds provide by eating up the worms after the trees are watered.

"The trees always overbear. You have to leave 50 percent and pick 50 percent. It keeps the trees bearing every year," Howard said.

Cheryl Verts, a retired instructional aide at Coronado K-8 School in the Amphitheater school district, makes applesauce from Howard's apples and salsa from his tomatoes. She has been a customer of Howard's Farm since 1980, when Howard transported her kids.

"I take lots of trips down there. His peaches are out of this world, and I get most of my fruit from Howard's farm," Verts said.

Howard's thumb started turning green on the farm he grew up on in Kentucky, where, he said, his family ate what they grew. The gardening skills stuck with him, but before he broke ground on the orchard, he worked a long string of jobs including a long stint as a professional musician. He started playing in 1965 and did so professionally until 1995.

"When you weren't playing, you were losing," he said. "I took any job I could get. The only way you can sharpen your skills as a musician is by putting yourself in front of a crowd."

Cultivating a new life

Shortly after he married his wife, Rebecca, a musician friend told Howard that music gigs flowed like wine in Arizona. Howard wasn't so sure, with visions of John Wayne, cactus and dirt dancing in his head. But the newlyweds came to Tucson to visit Rebecca's parents during Christmas 1975.

"It was beautiful. I went out one morning and there was frost all over the grass, and the sun was coming up and melting the frost, and I said, 'Wow. What a place.' So we started making plans," Howard said.

They packed everything they could into their station wagon and truck and headed west. Turns out his musician friend was right — Howard immediately got a job playing bass at a nightclub called The Buckskin, where Tucson Mall now sits. As they settled into Southern Arizona life, Howard consistently played The Mint, one of Tucson's oldest watering holes. When Howard started at The Mint, he earned $25 a night, and the jukebox played three songs for a quarter. He played the bar for more than a decade.

Over the years, he balanced playing music gigs and driving the bus around cultivating the orchard. Before he retired in 2001, Howard bused Shelly Woodyard, then a student at Coronado K-8 School. At her home as a child, she used to pick fresh peaches and eat them straight from the trees, just as you can do at Howard's. She remembers singalongs while riding his bus, and sees Howard's Orchard as an opportunity to introduce her kids to home-grown fruits and vegetables.

"The food from his orchard has a different taste. It's juicier, more flavorful and better tasting. It's the best-kept secret," Woodyard said. "It's fun for kids to do, too, for them to see how food is grown. There is nothing like a BLT sandwich made with tomatoes that you pick off the vine. I want my kids to know what that is all about."

If you go

What: Howard's Orchard.

Where: 4101 E. Pinal St. in Catalina.

Details: The farm generally is open from June through Thanksgiving, depending on crop availability. The "you-pick" operation runs from 6:30 a.m. to noon Wednesday through Saturday. Right now, peaches are plentiful at the orchard. Tomatoes and peaches are $2 a pound, and customers take home what they pick from the tree or vine.

More information: Call 825-9413.