Apples are high on the list for backyard gardeners. Gathering Ground is working to identify delicious apples that grow relatively free of disease here on the Island, to assist home growers and help ensure their success.

We are trialing a large variety of heritage apples that are known for being tasty and easier to manage with few or no sprays. These include King David, Arkansas Black, Wolf River, Arkane, Ashmead’s Kernel, Liberty, Freedom, Winecrisp, Roxbury Russet, Golden Russet, and William’s Pride. Disease-resistant trees allow for low environmental impact management in an orchard setting, and they allow homegrowers, who don’t want to bother with spraying their trees, the ability to grow beautiful, delicious apples!

Gathering Ground’s other focus with apples is identifying unique apples trees growing wild on Washington Island, many of which grow beautiful, delicious apples. All apples grown from seed are unique, even different from their parents (just like people!). Our hope is to identify these apples and preserve their genetics through propagation so that we can ultimately grow them in our orchard and make trees available to homegrowers.