Before apple season began, when we were still waiting impatiently for our apples to return to the farmer’s market stalls, Amber and I had the pleasure of visiting Wolfe Farms in central Illinois. We got the most informative walk through with Ron Wolfe; it was lovely. The Wolfes run quite an operation, over 300 trees and over one hundred varieties, many heirloom and antiques. We’ve been working with them and enjoying their apples since the project began.
We visited with the purpose of dropping off our baby seedlings in five gallon buckets that are a part of the two trees project. We were also anxious to see how the small grafted Johnny Appleseed trees from Heritage Trees were doing (we sent them to Ron about three months prior).
He walked us through the test orchard, showed us his newly grafted trees, and let us taste the few that were already ripe (including the Lodi, a summer apple with very soft skin that is ripe for only about one week in late July. They don’t even sell this apple, making us feel super special). He showed us the picking bags they use, and talked about different styles of picking.
Our Johnny trees were doing well, small but thriving in their Tubex (a sort of greenhouse that they ship trees in and protects saplings from deer and other larger pests). In three years the two Johnny Appleseed trees will be ready for us to make other grafts from, which is absolutely fascinating for us. Ron promised to teach us next March just how that is done.
After walking through the orchard, he took us through the rest of his farm (which he referred to as his garden, but it is so big and bountiful it hardly feels as small and unassuming as garden implies). We ate cukes and peas right off the plant. Amazing. We were smitten. He showed us the chicken shed, which was a barn built out of old telegraph poles and siding, and according to the previous owner of the property, dated back to the mid eighteen hundreds.
After all that, we unloaded the car of the seedlings, and asked Ron for critique on how to plant in the future. He said we couldn’t have done any better, and the little bit of mold on the leaves of one of our trees was no big problem, it would just slightly stunt the growth of the tree. What was the best surprise, when we asked if it wasn’t too much trouble for him to take the five trees we brought, he said no way. Pointing to a line of dying, huge cottonwood trees, he said, “I’m going to take those down and put in your trees there. They’ll be my new windbreak.” Wait a minute, Ron, these are apple trees and won’t be a great windbreak to the rest of your orchard, we thought. Not so, seedling apple trees (instead of trees grafted on dwarf rootstock) will get to be forty feet tall!
