Ginger Gold Apples

The 2011 apple harvest is here! This year is full of challenges: constant rains during the time when pollination happens, frost, frost and more frost, and me with a badly broken leg from a fall off of a ladder in June. Despite all of that, Olympia’s Orchard is putting up a beautiful crop with most varieties. We began the harvest with Yellow Transparent and Sweet Bough, then harvested the 100 year old Gravenstein just in time for the Gravenstein weekend at the Petaluma Farmer’s Market. We will be harvesting every week now through October! You can purchase our apples at the Petaluma Farmer’s Market on Saturday’s from 2 to 5:30, or at our honor farmstand at 1051 Walker Road in Two Rock, Petaluma. Enjoy the harvest!

Come out to the farm this September 26th for an intimate tour of Olympia Orchard’s 500 organic and heirloom apple trees at the peak of ripeness, and farmstead apple pie making workshop!

Learn first-hand from Kathy Tresch, farmer, apple expert and owner of Olympia Orchard, about growing and caring for heirloom and organic apples. After a tour of the orchard, where you will pick apples that go into your pie, chef and food writer Meloni Courtway, will teach you the secrets of making the perfect pie crust. While your take home pie is baking in the outdoor oven, enjoy a slice as it was meant to be made, perfectly picked from the orchard to the oven, with a paring of local wine or sun-brewed iced tea.

Join us for a unique Apple Pie Workshops and on-the-farm cooking experience using the freshest of ingredients at the source. APPLE PIE WORKSHOP SIGNUP .

A $48 workshop fee includes apple farm tour, hands on pie making course on the farm, apple pie tasting and a personal take home pie to share with family and friends. Workshops are approximately 3 hours. Space limited.

Apple Pie Workshops from Orchard to Oven Sunday, September 26th @ 10 a.m.

Sunday, September 26h @ 10 am, to purchase tickets, please click on this link > APPLE PIE WORKSHOP .

We would love it if you join us for this final ode to the apple and the earth it grows from.

SEPTEMBER 19th Sold Out

Apple Pie Workshops from Orchard to Oven Sunday, September 19 @ 11 a.m. and 3 p.m., 2010

With gratitude to all who attended our first Orchard to Oven Apple Pie Workshop this Sunday. We have added a fourth, and last workshop on Sunday, September 19th @ 3pm, to purchase tickets, please click on this link > APPLE PIE WORKSHOP . We would love it if you join us for this final ode to the apple and the earth it grows from.

Sunday, September 12 @ 11 a.m. and 3 p.m.
Sunday, September 19 @ 11 a.m.

Come out to the farm this September 12th or 19th for a intimate tour of Olympia’s Orchard’s 500 organic and heirloom apple trees at the peak of ripeness, and farmstead apple pie making workshop!

Learn first-hand from me, Kathy Tresch, farmer, apple expert and owner of Olympia’s Orchard, about growing and caring for heirloom and organic apples.  After a tour of the orchard, where you will pick apples that go into your pie, chef and food writer Meloni Courtway, will teach you the secrets of making the perfect pie crust.  While your take home pie is baking in the outdoor oven, enjoy a slice as it was meant to be made, perfectly picked from the orchard to the oven, with a paring of local wine or sun-brewed iced tea.

Join us for one of three unique Apple Pie Workshops and  on-the-farm cooking experience using the freshest of ingredients at the source.

A $48 workshop fee includes apple farm tour, hands on pie making course on the farm, apple pie tasting and a personal take home pie to share with family and friends.    Workshops are approximately 3 hours.  Space limited.

I’ve enjoyed watching the native bees in my orchard for years. Many of them are so small that you might not recognize them as being a bee. Everyday they make hundreds  more visits to flowers than hive honeybees,  so they are super pollinators. As the hive bees are in decline due to many reasons, the native bees are going strong. Along the lower side of my orchard, as a buffer between the orchard and the creek, I have planted a long hedgerow  full of native plants. The native bees are dialed into the flowers of these plants and they love Ceanothus; the beautiful wild lilac, twin berry, ribes;  the flowering currents, aster, wild rose, yarrow, buckwheat, sage, and more. They also like flowers like cosmos,  penstemon, echinacea and butterfly bush. If you plant it, they will come!

We have already begun preparations and plan to plant more apple trees this spring. Our friend and Permaculture Keyline Design guru, Rusty Davis, has laid out a new plot to expand the orchard. Using a Yeoman’s plow, Rusty created some beautiful “s” curves with small berms into which we will plant new trees next year.

I have ordered more trees from Trees of Antiquity.  Several varieties that we sold out of before our customers had had enough were Honeycrisp, Cinnamon Spice, and Gravenstein, so we will plant more! We will also try some varieties that were much requested, such as Winesap, Macintosh and Pippin. I do not know how they will do in our climate, so I will just plant 2 of each as a trial. One other variety highly recommended is Crown Prince Rudolph, an heirloom tree from Austria, 1860. It is said to be sweet and mildly spiced with a fine texture and is a standout among 200+ varieties in a Pacific Northwest orchard. I can’t wait to see how these new trees will do, but I’ll have to be patient as it will be a few years before we will have crop to harvest from. Talk about slow food!

Kathy

Meanwhile, although the apples are all picked, there is still much to do.
The orchard floor has sprouted a green carpet of clover and the leaves left
on the trees are turning deep shades of red and bronze. There is a
sprinkling of yellow leaves from the tall ash trees that are the wind
break west of the orchard. It is very beautiful. I’ve been mulching and
pruning in the orchard hedgerow, which is a beneficial insect and
pollinator habitat. I have planted more Osier Creek Dogwood and coppiced
the yellow willow. The coppicing produced some very nice straight poles,
from 4 to 8 feet in length and about 1 to 2 ” diameter. Next year I will
use the poles to brace up branches on the apple trees that are heavy with
fruit. I took the odds and ends of the coppiced cuttings and walked along
the riparian corridor where I stuck them in along the stream banks to
prevent erosion and provide shade and habitat. In the spring, new
leaves will bud out from the bare sticks and new yellow willow trees
will be on the way.

Kathy