Partly cloudy this evening, then becoming cloudy after midnight. Low 47F. Winds light and variable..

Partly cloudy this evening, then becoming cloudy after midnight. Low 47F. Winds light and variable.

Haverhill High School students, from left, Nasiah Vallejo, 17, Leila Quiles, 14, and April Paez, 15, moments after picking apples in the school’s orchard.

Haverhill High School student Samuel Stanley, 15, gleefully filled a bucket with apples he picked in the school’s orchard.

Haverhill High School student Richie Littlefield navigated through rows of apple trees in his school's orchard in an electric wheelchair. 

Haverhill High School student Shadi Doucee peers through the branches of an apple tree in the high school’s orchard.

Haverhill High School student Shadi Doucee shows the apples he picked.

Haverhill High School student Nevaeh Joubert, 16, with a pear she picked.

Haverhill High School students, from left, Nasiah Vallejo, 17, Leila Quiles, 14, and April Paez, 15, moments after picking apples in the school’s orchard.

Haverhill High School student Samuel Stanley, 15, gleefully filled a bucket with apples he picked in the school’s orchard.

Haverhill High School student Richie Littlefield navigated through rows of apple trees in his school's orchard in an electric wheelchair. 

Haverhill High School student Shadi Doucee peers through the branches of an apple tree in the high school’s orchard.

Haverhill High School student Shadi Doucee shows the apples he picked.

Haverhill High School student Nevaeh Joubert, 16, with a pear she picked.

HAVERHILL — A group of students at Haverhill High School, including some who’d never picked an apple off a tree, got to experience the joy of a New England fall tradition.

Friday, Sept. 23, was apple-picking day when students in two special needs programs left the building and entered their own lush orchard, where apples hanging from the branches of 25 trees waited to be plucked.

The first thing they planned to do after filling bags and baskets with their pesticide-free apples was to make applesauce to bring home in mason jars for them and their families to enjoy. They also planned to bake apple crisp another day and maybe even turn what’s left into cider.

Last year’s crop, the first harvested, was nothing like this year’s crop of big and juicy McIntosh and Gala apples that were bursting with flavor.

These students are learning the true meaning of “farm-to-table” while at the same time taking a few big bites out of the freshest apples and pears they’ve ever had.

“This was my first time apple picking,” Nasiah Vallejo, 17, said after pausing a moment to think about it. “I’m glad I had my friends April (Paez) and Leila (Quiles) with me as they make me happy.”

Nancy Burke, a special education paraprofessional, launched the school’s learning garden program in 2012 with a vegetable garden and five years ago won grants from the National Education Association and Mass Teacher’s Association to create an orchard.

With help from various volunteers, the orchard swelled to 25 apple trees, 10 pear trees, eight plum trees, a cherry tree and a long row of raspberry bushes, which students harvested during their summer school programs to make raspberry jam.

Special education teacher Jason Burns said the orchard is laid out in a way that allows students in wheelchairs, such as Richie Littlefield, 17, to easily navigate down rows of apple trees with plenty of room to reach the fruit-laden branches.

“This is great,” Littlefield said. “I’ve gone apple picking with my family but never at our school. It’s a pretty good orchard.”

In another courtyard, students grow vegetables, strawberries and herbs and while attending summer school they harvest their crops to make salsa and other foods such as three-bean salads in their classroom kitchen. Come fall, they select their best-looking vegetables and herbs and enter them into the Topsfield Fair for judging, along with their shiniest McIntosh and Gala apples and Bartlett pears.

They’d previously harvested plums and cherries, which also grow in their orchard.

“We have a daily living class where the kids learn independent living skills,” Burke said. “For the orchard, the apples go right from the trees to the table.”

Burke said the future is promising for the learning garden program as she’s received a grant to build a greenhouse so crops can be planted earlier in the season and also to extend the growing season.

“Mr. Burns is also going to get a storage shed and more benches and seating,” she said.

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