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The Couple Behind Critz Farms Matthew and Juanita Critz have turned an out-of-use dairy farm in Cazenovia into a destination for guests to enjoy its various attractions By Mary Beth Roach
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atthew and Juanita Critz are in the business of harvesting fun for their visitors. Over the past few decades, they have turned an out-of-use dairy farm in Cazenovia into a destination for guests who travel miles to enjoy its various attractions from March to December. Whether it’s climbing around on the play equipment; taking a wagon ride; sampling ciders and brews at the tasting room; viewing the cider mill at work, in season; cutting down your own Christmas trees; attending the music events; finding your way through the corn maze; picking pumpkins, apples or blueberries; seeing how maple syrup is made; enjoying some seasonal treats in the café; or browsing through the gift shop — Critz Farms has become a veritable playground for tourists of all ages. Juanita estimates that in a typical year, they welcome between 50,000 and 60,000 visitors to their farm. When Matthew bought the farm on Rippleton Road in the 1985, it was approximately 110 to 115 acres. The couple has since purchased other farm parcels near and adjacent to the original farm and today, it’s 350 acres of fun and education for visitors. Originally, the farm was to be a cut-your-own Christmas tree farm, Juanita said. But it has gone on to become one of the first agritourism farms in the area. The customers’ enjoyment is their underlying philosophy in running the business. “Our outlook is family fun, entertainment, and along 30
55 PLUS - October / November 2021
the way you sell product,” Matthew said. Juanita added that it’s a “farm experience with an educational focus.” A former elementary special education teacher with the Jamesville-Dewitt School District, she chuckled, “Once an educator, always an educator.” The roots of the business A SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry graduate, Matthew had been a partner in a Christmas tree farm in Harrisville in the Adirondacks. However, after about six years, he said, the partners had other business ventures in mind, so he moved to Cazenovia, an area he had lived in during his 20s and enjoyed, and he bought the farm. Matthew started out planting trees, but since the trees need about eight years before they can be harvested, he needed something else to make ends meet. So, he started a contract Christmas tree trimming service. Christmas trees, he explained, need to be trimmed every year, so he had contracts with different tree farms, some of them in the South and he and his crew would take to the road — all while tending to his own farm. Some of his customers in Virginia and Delaware convinced him to try agritourism, an idea that hadn’t yet caught on in Upstate New York, but was popular in some of the Southern states. He took their advice and started with a small pumpkin patch. Today that patch is about 40 acres, producing hundreds of thousands of pounds of the orange gourd. The
