Tower Hill Botanic Garden Horticulture Director Mark Richardson will discuss the restoration of Tower Hill’s Harrington Orchard and its Davenport Collection of pre-20th century heirloom apples, in a free lecture on September 26 beginning at 6:30 pm. Registration requested at www.towerhilbg.org.
It’s fall, time to celebrate all things Apple! Apples are an ancient, mysterious and remarkable fruit. Grown for over 10,000 years, apples appear in myths, legends, songs and folk traditions. Apple trees can live for over 100 years and no two apple seeds will produce the same fruit. Instructor Betsy Williams will hold a food and design class at Tower Hill Botanic Garden on Saturday, October 13 from 10:30 – 1.
The shape, flavor and fragrance of apples play starring roles in fall and winter celebrations. We’ll discuss apple history and traditions, learn how to use apples decoratively for the upcoming holidays and enjoy an apple tasting. The class will sample apple cider syrup, nibble dried apple slices, enjoy a sip of apple infused vodka, try a savory apple soup and classic apple salad then make a small table arrangement to celebrate Autumn with apples, greens, berries and other seasonal touches. Recipe handouts included. All materials included.
Betsy Williams teaches, lectures and writes about living with herbs and flowers. A gardener and herb grower since 1972, Betsy trained as a florist in Boston and England. She combines her floral and gardening skills with an extensive knowledge of history, plant lore and seasonal celebrations. Betsy is the author of several books on the uses and stories of herbs and flowers. She has appeared on the Discovery Channel and greater Boston cable stations as well as local and national radio talk shows. Betsy lectures and teaches locally and nationally. $70 for Tower Hill members, $80 for nonmembers. Register online at www.towerhillbg.org.
Rowan Jacobsen, author and Knight Science Journalism Fellow, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, will speak in the Geological Lecture Hall of the Harvard Museum of Natural History on Thursday, May 3 at 6 pm on Apples: A New England History.
No other fruit embodies the horticultural and cultural range of the apple. Originally from the mountains of Kazakhstan, apples have seduced bees, intoxicated monks, nourished colonists, and inspired artists, from Paul Cézanne to Rudolf Blaschka, who created Harvard’s collection of botanically precise glass apples (now on view in the Glass Flowers gallery). James Beard Award- winning author Rowan Jacobsen will discuss his book, Apples of Uncommon Character, and will explore the surprising ways in which the apple has shaped New England history. A tasting of heirloom ciders from Vermont’s Eden Specialty Ciders will follow the talk.
Advance registration required at https://hmnh.harvard.edu/Apples. Free and open to the public. Free event parking at 52 Oxford Street Garage. Reception sponsored by the Harvard Chapter of Sigma Xi .
Satisfy your sweet tooth at this Tower Hill Botanic Garden celebration of apples, pies, honey, and preserves. Enjoy food trucks – Home Grown on Saturday, September 30 and Say Cheese on Sunday, October 1. Kids of all ages are encouraged to wear farmer costumes.
Schedule:
10am–4pm / Pies, preserves, and baked goods competition. View entry rules here.
10am–4pm / Vendors
10am–4pm / Apple and Honey tastings
10am–4pm / Face painting
10am–4pm / Crafts (Apple Prints)
11am–noon / Storytime
12noon–4pm / Mead tastings
2pm / Orchard Tour with Joann Vieira, Director of Horticulture, Tower Hill
Events on Saturday, September 30 only:
11am–noon / Free Family Walk
1pm and 3pm / Live music with Slum Raisins
Events on Sunday, October 1 only:
11am and 2pm / Orchard Tours
10am–4pm / Botanical Art: Autumn Leaves in Colored Pencil
1pm and 3pm / Live music with Lester Rawson Band
Apple rose tart below from Cooking with Manuela. For more information visit http://www.towerhillbg.org/fall-fest/
Please join apple historian and orchardist John Bunker at The Gardens at Elm Bank, 900 Washington Street in Wellesley on Tuesday, November 15 at 1:30 pm for an entertaining history of New England’s iconic fruit. John will take us back 400 years to the first Massachusetts orchards, from the times when everyone made cider to the introduction of widespread grafting, from the era of the small self sufficient farm to the commodity orchards of today. He’ll tell us about the famous Massachusetts varieties, where they originated, how they disappeared and the recent efforts to rescue them.
John grew up in Concord, Massachusetts and Palo Alto, California. He’s lived in Palermo, Maine for the past 45 years. There he farms and tends orchards with Cammy Watts. He has coordinated nursery sales at Fedco Trees since its beginning in 1984. He is active in the Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association and directs the Maine Heritage Orchard in Unity. Mass Hort Member Cost: $12 Non Member Cost $20. Register online at http://www.masshort.org.
The Coastal Growers’ Market and Historic New England invite you to taste locally grown fruits and vegetables at Casey Farm, 2325 Boston Neck Road, in Saunderstown, Rhode Island on Saturday, October 15 from 8:30 am – 12:30 pm, during the height of Southern New England’s agriculture season.
Casey Farm is one of three vegetable growers offering a taste of the season. Tasting is free, but you’re invited to support local farmers by purchasing your favorites. Enjoy coffee, bakery items, and many other delicious treats along with live music.
Free. Date is subject to change due to availability of crop. Please call 401-295-1030 for more information, or visit www.historicnewengland.org.
The Trustees, Massachusetts’ largest conservation and preservation organization, announced an exciting line up of culinary, health, and wellness programs being offered throughout the month of October in the KITCHEN at the Boston Public Market on Congress Street in Boston. As the programming partner for the state-of-the art KITCHEN space at the nation’s only all-locally sourced Market of its kind, The Trustees offers programs during Market opening hours designed to connect Boston residents, commuters, and visitors to local food and healthy, active living. Programs include a diverse selection of free and paid hands-on classes and workshops, demos, lectures and special events. For a full line up of currently scheduled program offerings and to register, visit: thetrustees.org/KITCHEN. For more information, email kitcheninfo@thetrustees.org or call 617.542.7696 x2117.
On Thursday, October 22, from 6:30 – 8:30, Dr. Wes Autio of the University of Massachusetts, Amherst discusses the techniques for growing apples in the landscape, including both horticulture and pest management. The program will end with a tasting of many of the apple varieties grown at the University of Massachusetts’ Cold Spring Orchard. Fee: Free.
We have a wonderful, diverse history of fruit growing in this country and are fortunate to have many collections of precious fruit types representing cultivation from the earliest times of settlement to the present. Unlike the Svaalbard “Doomsday” seed vault in Norway, fruit collections of heirloom apples, pears, cherries and all manner of fruit are in the ground and subject to climate change, variations in growing conditions and new or old pest pressures. Maintaining these precious collections becomes more difficult with each passing year. What strategies must we consider for these living things in order to be available to future generations. Come to Tower Hill Botanic Garden on Saturday, October 10 and hear Dan Bussey give a free presentation on Saving the Heirloom Apple, beginning at 2 pm. Visit www.towerhillbg.org for more information and directions.
Dan Bussey was born and raised in Wisconsin in the house his father built in the middle of the family farm orchard. Being surrounded by old apple trees since the time he could remember likely contributed much to Dan’s interest in planting trees and having his own orchard. Dan has collected heirloom fruit varieties since 1979. Along with the orchard, Dan operated a community cider press for 24 years and is now the Orchard Manager and apple historian for the Seed Savers Exchange. Discovering information on old apple varieties has been his lifelong passion and he has compiled a soon to be printed, 7 volume encyclopedia of apples that have been grown in North America since 1623. The Illustrated History of the Apple in North America is the largest work on apples of its kind ever published and will be available later this year. Image from the New York Times.
For 300 years Massachusetts was the center of American orcharding. Long before the days of Red Delicious, Fuji, Gala and Honeycrisp there was Roxbury Russet, Garden Royal, Hubbardston Nonesuch and Westfield Seek No Further. Where did those old varieties come from? What were they like? What were they used for? Where are they now? On Saturday, October 3 at 1 pm join apple historian and fruit explorer John Bunker at Tower Hill Botanic Garden for a romp through the history of apples in the Bay State. Learn the answers to these and other questions. Bring your apples for John to identify. Free with admission.
John Bunker grew up in Massachusetts and California, moving to Maine in 1968. He has lived in Palermo on Super Chilly Farm for the past 43 years, where he and Cammy Watts grow vegetables, woody and herbaceous ornamentals, small fruits and tree fruits. He coordinates nursery sales for Fedco, the co-op seed and nursery company in Clinton. His passion is tracking down heirloom fruit varieties, particularly those originating in Maine. He has established the Maine Heritage Orchard at the Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association -MOFGA’s- Common Ground in Unity. Eventually the orchard will be home to 500 or more historic pears and apples. The first 100 apple varieties were planted in April 2014. He coordinates an annual series of organic orcharding classes at MOFGA, the spring “Seed Swap and Scion Exchange” and the October “Great Maine Apple Day.” He speaks and teaches in the New England area regularly year round. In 2007 he self-published Not Far From the Tree: A Brief History of the Apples and the Orchards of Palermo, Maine.
Porter Square Books, located in the Porter Square Shopping Center at 25 White Street in Cambridge, will host Russell Steven Powell on Thursday, January 22, beginning at 7 pm, who will speak about his new book Apples of New England. This fascinating and helpful guide will offer practical advice about rare heirlooms and newly discovered varieties, chapters on the rich tradition of apple growing in New England and on the fathers of American apples Massachusetts natives John Chapman (Johnny Appleseed) and Henry David Thoreau. Apples of New England will present the apple in all its splendor: as biological wonder, super food, work of art, and cultural icon.
Apples of New England will also be an indispensable resource for anyone identifying apples in New England orchards, farm stands, grocery stores or their own backyard. Photographs of the more than 200 apples discovered, grown, or sold in New England will be accompanied by notes about flavor and texture, history, ripening time, storage quality, and best use.
Russell Steven Powell has worked for the apple industry for nearly 20 years, most of that time as executive director of the nonprofit New England Apple Association. As its senior writer, he currently writes the weblog newenglandorchards.org.
In addition to his two books about apples, Apples of New England (Countryman Press, 2014) and America’s Apple (Brook Hollow Press, 2012), Powell was founding editor and publisher of New England Watershed Magazine, named Best New Publication of 2006 by the Utne Reader. He produced and directed Shack Time (2001), an award-winning video documentary program about the artist shacks in the dunes of the Cape Cod National Seashore. His oil paintings and prints were exhibited in New York City and Cape Cod in 2014.
A native of New England, he lives in western Massachusetts. For more information about this lecture and book signing visit www.portersquarebooks.com.
