Minnesota Harvest blossoms again

There will be another Minnesota Harvest after all.

The popular orchard outside Jordan, which closed last year at the end of apple-picking season, is reopening under new management.

Already this spring they invited the public to a "Blessing of the Blossoms" conducted by a local minister and by fall they hope for a bumper crop of apples.

"We've been pruning trees and cleaning and restoring. We've been at it for about six months now," said Kevin Knox, one of the partners in K2 Legacy Investments, the new management company. "My interest is to keep the orchard a thriving part of Scott County."

Knox, owner of the Nicolin Mansion Bed & Breakfast, was friends with longtime orchard owner John "Topper" Sponsel.

Sponsel died in 2006, about a year after selling the orchard, which had fallen into debt in the 1990s, to a developer.

His former wife and daughters kept the orchard running through the remainder of a five-year lease that expired last year. Absent another operator when the 2010 harvest was up, they sold the equipment and offered trees for $100 if people would come get them.

"There is an asset out here with a number of people involved," said Kelly, who helped plant the apple trees with her family. "It really cannot just be left to dangle in the breeze."

But there's a lot of work to be done to return the orchard to its glory days.

The buildings need facelifts. Breeggemann, who restored the Nicolin Mansion and the brewery building in downtown Jordan, will lead that effort.

They've been cleaning, painting and repairing windows, with plans to open the apple lodge and packing house and have the cider house running by fall.

They also are rounding up more equipment, since much of the old equipment was sold when the orchard closed.