Breaking News for Apple Lovers
& Community Orchardists

Welcome to the page where we share news and happenings about the community orchard movement. We'll be posting ways apple lovers can help build momentum for the cause, general interest stories about the world of apples, and pertinent quotes from you about our efforts to ensure local fruit.

The Holistic Orchard:
Growing Tree Fruits
and Berries the
Biological Way

An Award Winner!

Each year, the American Horticultural Society recognizes outstanding gardening books published in North America with its annual Book Award. The Holistic Orchard is one of five books chosen for the 2012 Book Award. This comprehensive guide is "like spending a weekend with the guru of organic orcharding" according to Kathy LaLiberte of the award committee. Of course, it's the trees that are the true imparters of knowledge here . . . but how cool to tap into ecosystem wisdom, eh?

Totally Green Apples

Anne Raver, long-term garden writer at the New York Times, has discovered The Holistic Orchard. This is beaucoup publicity for getting the word out about healthy orcharding. You don't often read a newspaper feature that gets the biological facts correct! Seeing a good word for this network and the efforts of community orchardists everywhere made this that much more of a success.

The Holistic Approach

Our Food Our Farms has generously put together a delightful visual plug for growing healthy fruit. We invite you to have a peek at Michael's very first effort at film presence. Marlon Brando in the orchard? We doubt it. . . but honestly? Our friend Chris Conroy did a fantastic job. This clip captures the essence of holistic orcharding in ways meant to inspire your own fruiting efforts. Please enjoy the show!

Grow Organic Apples goes bonkers on Facebook

Virginia girls bringing
in the harvest.

The potential to engage apple lovers via Facebook is incredible. Accordingly, we now have a Facebook page of our own. Here's where those who love fruit might first encounter the notion of nutrient-dense fruit. Facebook members can further spread the word within their own networks by sharing about local orchards that offer healthy apples and other delectable tree fruit. The more that people hear about our community orchard movement, the more dynamic this whole vision becomes!

Grow Organic Apples with the Holistic Orchard Network is our "news and links page" on Facebook.

If you do this sort of thing -- as in actually have a Facebook account -- please "like" our page.

The goal here is for community orchardists to be discovered and appreciated by far more people.

Forgotten Fruits Making a Comeback

All open-pollinated apples discovered prior to the beginning of the twentieth century are considered antique varieties. Some fourteen thousand named cultivars flourished in far-flung orchards and backyards across North America by 1900. A number of these time-honored apples are staging a comeback, and for good reason. Many offer distinctive flavor. Some are unsurpassed for specific uses. Heirlooms as a general rule stood up to the insect and disease pressures in a given region at that time. That will still play in your favor, especially in a healthy ecosystem. Tapping into history can be a fun part of home orcharding. We're in the process of creating state and provincial listings with knowledgeable apple people like John Bunker, Lee Calhoun, Gordon Tooley, and Dan Bussey to be published here as an offering of this website. Any suggestions to offer?

A Plug for Community Orchard Listings

We set a goal to make this site the place where organic-minded customers can find holistic orchards near to home. We have invested considerable effort into making the background coding just right to bring this website to the fore in the search engine race. The full value of what's being done here goes far beyond just marketing, of course, but hey! Every new customer who purchases flavorful fruit from a local holistic orchard becomes a big plus in our mutual success column. Take a moment to make sure your grower knows about our efforts, okay?

The Betsy Lydon Ark Award

2006 Betsy Lydon Ark Award went to
Neal Peterson, pawpaw grower.

This sustainable farming award recognizes an Ark of Taste grower whose work reflects the goals of Slow Food USA and, if better known and celebrated, would benefit the wider community. The award serves as a memorial to Betsy Lydon, whose life and work profoundly expressed her passionate support for local producers and their endeavors to provide traditional food and beverages.

Producers can nominate themselves, or can be nominated by a community member or peer. Nominees must be working with one or more products on the Ark of Taste and making a significant contribution to the advancement of knowledge about the production practices they employ. Further, their work should demonstrate the concept of "place" where links between local landscape, culture, and the community are identifiable and embodied in their work.

The nominations review committee started with one of our own back in 2005: An updated interview with Michael Phillips sets the stage for other tree fruit growers to be considered for this honor.