Wills Family Orchard

In 1991, we purchased 32 acres about 20 minutes west of Des Moines, Iowa. We put up a small shed for our tools and a small tree house for our kids to play in. In 1992, we spent our time planting and taking care of our very first apple trees, growing a garden, and building our house. The next year we moved into our earth-berm basement home. Before our fourth child was born, it was time to take the roof off of our basement home and build our house addition above. As we built our house, we continued to grow our family and our farm — all with the help of family and friends! In 1997, we called friends and family to let them know that we actually had apples to sell! In those days, we sold our apples right out of our house. Eventually, we started selling them off of our front porch. This seems crazy looking back, and it seemed crazy at the time! Nevertheless, we had to start somewhere. We then made a little store out of our breezeway between our house and garage. When we outgrew the breezeway store in 2009, we moved up to our current barn that we built the previous summer. We have had great support from our family, friends, and customers throughout the years, and that has allowed us to grow.