We adore heritage apples; no store-bought fruit is ever going to have the quirks, the character and the variation we see in old apple varieties. If you want to bake, why use a Granny Smith when you have access to Wolf River, Northern Spy or Caville Blanc D’hiver. Once you’ve picked up a Cox’s Orange Pippin, an Ashmead’s Kernel or Grimes Golden, you’ll never enjoy a grocery store apple quite as much. With the number of known varieties in the *thousands*, there are so many amazing taste experiences to have.
We’re very fortunate that our founding head gardener, Sharon Rempel, collected a number of grafts from an old orchard in Oliver and created a small heritage apple orchard on our site. A few trees died and were regrafted, possibly with other varieties. Then, sometime around 2011, another manager added an additional 20 trees to the site. Unfortunately, record keeping has been exceptionally poor and the map we inherited for our main orchard is clearly not correct.
This year, we’ve photographed fruit from as many of our trees as we can, in the hopes that maybe you can help us identify them, or at least get us in the right ballpark. If you’re interested in a little detective work, we’d really love your help!
