Interesting interview on American Public Media’s Marketplace show with Adam Nicholson on restoring the family farm at England’s famous Sissinghurst Castle (home of Vita Sackville-West)

As a follow up to my post about the historic Piper Orchard, I thought I would focus on a slightly newer orchard — Brandon Street Orchard in the Hillman City neighborhood. If you’re not familiar with that neighborhood, you can find a map here.

Things got started in 2004 when a group of neighbors were awarded a Department of Neighborhoods Small & Simple Matching Grant for about $8,000. That might seem like a lot of money but that price tag included the purchase of the land from King County, getting rid of the blackberries that were there, hooking up the water meter, bringing in good soil, purchasing & planting of trees, etc. That initial investment got things going.

A couple years later, another Small & Simple Matching Grant helped with the purchase of the materials for the garden shed, some additional plants, and apparently a cider press — which is a great investment for any orchard that has a significant number of apples.

Because it’s such a new orchard, there is little history behind it. However, the community seems very involved in the orchard with a number of garden tours, work parties, and the like all dedicated to the upkeep of this urban orchard.

The fruit orchard is one of the community-owned and -managed gardens in the City’s P-Patch program. This isn’t the only example of fruit trees in P-Patches either – it’s happened several times and we are working to encourage more of it.

Depending on who you ask and the source of information, today could be Johnny Appleseed Day. Some people celebrate it on the anniversary of his death (either March 11 or March 18 — this seems to be sketchy), while others choose to celebrate it on the anniversary of his birth, September 26. Either way, it’s a good excuse to learn more about the man & the legend.

First, let’s start off with a song to get us all in the mood. From the Disney film The Legend of Johnny Appleseed. The full version (in two parts) can be seen here — narrated by James Earl Jones.

 We’ve all heard the stories and seen the images of Johnny Appleseed walking around, generally barefoot, spreading apple seeds wherever he went — here’s a good example that’s also something you can print out for the kids to color in. But the reality is that he was much more deliberate than that, although the barefoot piece seems to be accurate during the summer months. Rather than spreading seeds randomly, he created nursuries of trees which were then managed locally. The managers were encouraged to sell trees on credit or barter.

And he definitely lived a subsistance lifestyle with many sources referencing how he would give away most of his clothes and posessions, traveling from house to house telling stories to children in exchange for a place to stay and some food. At this time, the “west” were states like Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, and Michigan.

At some point in his life he became a minister — which suited his travelling tendencies. But it’s unclear as to whether this shift came after he started planting the seeds or before. One source claims that the seed & tree selling (or bartering) was to support his ministry efforts.

The legend talks about all the good eating apples produced by these trees, but some other sources I found claim that the apples were for making liquor and not for eating. I guess that doesn’t translate well in to a kid’s film. The Straight Dope tries to explain how that transition of focus from liquor to edible might have happened:

We stopped drinking apples and started eating them in the early 1900s. The Women’s Christian Temperance Union publicized the evils of alcohol, the movement towards Prohibition was gaining momentum, and the apple industry saw the need to re-position the apple…We can thank prohibition for shifting the image of the apple to the healthy, wholesome, American-as-apple-pie fruit that it is today.

However that happened, it’s a story that has carried through and had staying power.

There are even rumors that there are some apple trees here in Seattle that come from the same root stock as trees Johnny Appleseed is known to have planted. If anyone has any info about that — please post it in the comments. Would love to know if there are Johnny Appleseed trees in town!

Clearly I’m not going to get to the bottom of this via this blog post, but hopefully this helps shed some light on what the real Johnny Appleseed might have been like.

For some additional information, Michael Polin wrote about him in his book The Botany of Desire although most seem to think that Robert Price’s Johnny Appleseed: Man and Myth covers the subject pretty well.

So celebrate Johnny Appleseed today, on the 18th, or in September — but definitely celebrate him. Eat an apple, drink some (hard) cider, or make one of these recipes.

I’m in the process of researching the orchard history of Seattle. I’m curious to learn more about the ones that still exist, those historic orchards that have long since gone, and new ones sprouting up. Really to understand how all these fruit trees got here in the first place — and now sit in our yards and parks.  I plan on blogging about what I find.

The first is Piper Orchard, which is in Carkeek Park. Bob Baines, president of the Friends of Piper Orchard, invited a couple of us from City Fruit to participate in a planning meeting. During that I learned a bit about the history of Piper Orchard. There’s a wealth of information here – and the source of much of what’s below.

Starting with recent history, last year they put on a Festival of Fruit. Here’s a clip if you couldn’t attend:

The Piper family planted it over a century ago after he moved to Seattle in 1874. Andrew W. Piper ran the Puget Sound Candy Factory or a bakery, depending on the source, until it burned down in the Seattle fire. And according to this website, he was also the WA State Chess Champion from 1875-1890. He also ran for mayor and served on the city council — so he was a bit of a busy guy.

Wilhelmina “Minna” Piper is the one thought to have actually planted and cared for the orchard as her husband was away on business a lot. She was always thought of as the gardener. One source that mentions one of the sons, Paul Piper, used to take some of the fruit to sell it at the market. Andrew W. Piper reportedly also used the apples in his pastries — that is, if he was a baker.   

The park was bought as part of Carkeek part in 1927.

More recent history starts in 1981 when landscape architect Daphne Lewis discovered the antique fruit trees while making a master-plan survey for restoration of the park. She and a group of volunteers worked for two years to clear away the overgrowth (blackberries, mostly) so that the trees were accessible. They found about 30 apple trees, 2 pears, two cherry, along with a variety of non-fruit trees such as maples and hawthornes.

Currently, the Friends of Piper Orchard partners with the Seattle Parks Department to help look after the trees & fruit within the park. The Friends of Piper’s Orchard also organize monthly work parties that involve everything from pruning, clearing away blackberries, etc.

City Fruit is working with Bob Baines to figure out how we can partner together to help educate tree owners, improve the health of this great resource, and possibly increase the fruit yield that can then benefit those in need in the community.