SALEM, Ore. — About now, E.Z. Orchards of Salem, Ore., is dishing up thousands of bowls of strawberry shortcake to eager visitors.

In addition to its year-round produce market and offering seasonal specialties, E.Z. Orchards is a commercial farm and orchard growing apples, pears, peaches and wholesale hazelnuts.

They sell their fresh eating and cooking apples at the store while their cider varieties are either wholesaled or used in their fresh and hard ciders.

Claire Zielinski, the fourth generation on the farm, looks forward most to peach season. They sell their peaches exclusively at the market.

“They’re my favorite thing to grow,” Zielinski said. “They’re just delicious and there are so many great uses for them.”

Claire works at the market full-time with her father, John Zielinski. She manages merchandise, runs their social media campaign and handles numerous other managerial responsibilities.

She also serves as Marion County’s representative in the Oregon Farm Bureau’s Young Farmers and Ranchers program and takes part in Oregon Agritourism Partnerships.

It was 1929 when Edward Zielinski founded E.Z. Orchards, now owned by his grandchildren John, Mark and Kevin Zielinski.

In the 1990s, John proposed the family open a year-round market, which went over well with the public.

The Zielinskis also started offering events for the public. In October, E.Z. Orchards holds its popular family-friendly HarvestFest, with a pumpkin patch, corn maze, petting zoo and a host of other fun and educational activities.

A nonstop stream of school kids comes out during the festival, where they learn about such things as the life of an apple tree, finishing with a piping hot apple cider donut.

“This could be some kids’ introduction to agriculture that may even inspire them to go into the ag industry someday, so we want to make it special,” Zielinski said. “It’s also nice to help educate our adult visitors with questions and help them realize that the TikTok video they saw wasn’t necessarily 100% accurate; that you might need more than 30 seconds of information to fully understand a given agricultural issue.”

This summer, E.Z. Orchards will be hosting Oregon State University Extension Service, which will be giving classes on the basics of canning, freezing and other methods of food preservation.

The Zielinskis also look forward to reinstating their farm-to-fork dinners this summer, after COVID took a two-year bite out of the series.

Though she spent much of her growing up years helping on the farm, Claire’s father encouraged her to live and work off the farm a while before settling in at the family business.

Zielinski earned a business administration degree from St. Mary’s College of California and spent time studying and traveling in Japan before coming home to the farm.

“It’s a lot of hard work, but I really like being a part of the family business, adding my own things to it, helping it grow and looking forward to the future,” Zielinski said. “I love being a part of this community and we really try to give back to it.”

They send damaged yet edible produce to Marion-Polk Food Share and sell produce from other local farmers.

“I like the fact that it’s not just us who are thriving off E.Z. Orchards,” Zielinski said.