Kait Thornton handles the social media for her family’s pear and apple orchard in Tonasket, Wash., and her audience numbers nearly half a million followers.

Known as the “Apple Girl,” she shares videos about orchard and farm life, from building roads in the winter to why it’s OK to buy bruised fruit to trying her hand at harvesting wheat or managing cattle.

She sells produce around the region through her Kait’s Crates and is co-founder of AgNovo, a social media consulting business for ag-related businesses.

Thornton will be keynote speaker at the Northwest Ag Show Jan. 16 in Salem.

Thornton spoke with the Capital Press by telephone on Oct. 23. The interview has been edited for clarity and length.

Q: Are you excited for the Northwest Ag Show? What are you most looking forward to?

Thornton: I am absolutely excited. It’s always fun to talk to new audiences who might have an interest in agriculture and see if I can deepen that interest. This will be my first time (at the show).

Q: How is your social media doing?

Thornton: Social media is going well. I haven’t been as active on TikTok as I’d like, just because I’ve had a crazy travel schedule, but my audience is definitely growing.

I’m sitting on a lot of content right now; I have so much content I have to sort through and edit. But once that goes out, I believe I’ll see a jump in followers. That’s always exciting.

Q: Do you have an ideal number in mind?

Thornton: I’d like to eventually hit 1 million across platforms, but I’m still just over that 500,000 mark. I haven’t touched YouTube or anything like that, just because I’ve been busy. That’s all untapped areas.

Q: What is the coolest thing you’ve gotten to do?

Thornton: I’ve gotten to see all different types of growing regions for apples and pears, all over the U.S.

I’ll be going to Italy for Interpoma, the largest international apple trade show. (She attended it in November 2024.) Obviously, Europe has less acreage, so they have to be super-efficient with their land. So it’s always interesting to see their growing practices. Learning about their marketing approaches is something I always have an interest in.

Q: How can average farmers make social media work for them, in a way that brings in revenue?

Thornton: Farmers, first of all, have an incredible thing called passion. Showcasing that is something people are always interested in, it really stops (them from scrolling past). People see real, genuine people doing what they love, and there’s always interest there.

There’s a lot of family farms out there. Showing what your kids do, what chores they do and how they’re involved in the family farm, the family business — people have a lot of interest in that.

It can actually turn into quite a revenue stream, because you are promoting those good, wholesome values a lot of brands are looking for to align with.

Q: How does that translate to your family’s orchard?

Thornton: When I graduated from college (in December 2023), Dad and I had a discussion. He was like, “I can’t afford another paycheck.” I was like, “All right, well, I’ll just go into social media more.”

It’s allowed me to still live on the farm, get to do all of the things that I love, be in an area I love, surrounded by all the people that I love, but be able to make a decent enough income that I’m able to do that.

Q: How was this year for pears?

Thornton: Can I be honest? Um, terrible. I’d say there’s average about less than half of a normal crop. For instance, our Bosc pear blocks went from 2,000 bins last year to 200 to 300 bins this year.

I’ve talked to farmers near me and they’ve walked down an entire row and only found one pear.

A couple weeks ago we were hit with a pretty serious windstorm, with 40 mile per hour winds — a little bit of hail, but the most damage was from the wind — and that knocked a lot of our fruit on the ground.

Q: You shared in a video that the fruit’s not usable when it hits the ground.

Thornton: Yes. Per food safety requirements, et cetera, we cannot pick up that fruit and sell it.

Q: How about apples?

Thornton: Just now we’re going through the last couple weeks of harvest. It’s always a little bit stressful this time of year, because you know the first snowfall’s approaching. Just trying to get fruit off of the tree before then.

But the apples are looking pretty decent. Not a heavy crop, but actually a little bit more of a normal crop, which is nice to see.

Q: What are your options when you have a bad year?

Thornton: You just wait until the numbers come back. We won’t know how much we made off of this crop until around this time next year.

Q: Why is it important to share when a year didn’t go well?

Thornton: Personally, I always like to show things in a positive light, but I know it’s important to show the real stuff farmers go through.

Growing up with a lot of farmers, there is a lot of pride, and people almost don’t ever want to let on that they’re facing some heartache when it comes to crop load or just crop circumstances.

My dad’s always been very transparent as we were growing up, about what our family was going through, what our farm is going through and not shying away from, “Oh, this is a problem we’re facing.” And so I think that’s just my approach.

I think my followers want to see the real stuff. It’s not always sunshine and rainbows.

Q: Any message to people at the Northwest Ag Show?

Thornton: It’s rare to have people who have an interest in agriculture all coming together, so really try to take advantage of that time, network and get to know people.

Especially when they’re in your region, it’s nice to have a network of people you can call and talk to as a resource.

This is a time we need to all come together. Let’s keep trying to build more of a community.