Spring Apple Affair

Isn't apple blossom time just so beautiful?  

Thinking ahead to the fruit these blossoms will create with the help of some pollinator friends & envisioning a time when diverse, heritage apple trees thrive--the rare Milwaukee varietal included--its been exciting to plant & distribute some of our region's most endangered apple tree varietals this Spring.  

Spring is the time for grafting and planting and tending heritage fruit trees.

To celebrate the beauty of springtime and to sell some heritage apples for backyard, farmstead, professional orchard growing, Slow Food WiSE is hosting a special event tomorrow.  

Please join us for the first ever Spring Apple Affair on Saturday, May 12th from 12-4pm at the Stahl-Conrad Homestead in Hales Corners, WI.   

Bring your friends and family (including mom--it is the day before Mother's Day after all.)  Bring a picnic and your favorite apple recipe to exchange.  Bring your work gloves if you want to help clean up our tiny heritage orchard. Leave with a heritage fruit tree, local honey, a Mother's Day present, more knowledge, and new friends. 

Spring Apple Affair

• Heritage Apple Tree Sales
• Holistic Apple Tree Care Education  (with organic grower Joe Fahey of Peck & Bushel) 
• Local Product Sales, including Viola's Honey & Hack Farm's eggs & vegetable
• Spring Clean-up of our Heritage Orchard
  Apple Recipe Exchange (bring your favorite!)  
• Apple Preserves Tastings
• Special Mother's Day & Kid Friendly Activities
• And B.Y.O.P.-Bring Your Own Picnic!

  

For more info, to RSVP, or to volunteer, contact Jennifer - Jcasey@slowfoodwise.org.

To read more about our heritage trees and our grower, and to learn more about Slow Food WiSE, read the latest Slow Times.

Adopt Your Own Milwaukee Apple

Milwaukee Apple—Fall of 2011 

Maple Valley Orchard

Join Slow Food WiSE and the handful of orchardists, chefs, and food activists who are bringing antique apples back to our tables by "adopting" your own Milwaukee Apple for your backyard or community space. 

There are only five known Milwaukee apple trees in Milwaukee County. One located in the Urban Ecology Center’s Washington Park fruit orchard, was planted by Slow Food WiSE along with a group of youth and volunteers in 2011.   The other four Milwaukee varietal trees were planted in the Spring of 2010 by Slow Food WiSE volunteers at the Historic Stahl Conrad Homestead in Hale’s Corners, along with Pewaukee and Oneida Apple varieties.

Because the Milwaukee Apple is just one of hundreds of thousands of endangered or extinct apples that have disappeared from our plates, and we are promoting place based biodiversity, we are also adopting additional rare varietals with roots in Wisconsin--the Pewaukee, Oneida, Bonnie Best, and Wolf River.

To learn more and to adopt you own, follow this link.