Workshops – Books – Tours – Trees – Plants

Towards A Climate Resilient Food Economy:

We have passionately searched the Sierra Nevada and Western States to re-discover the living library of plants still scattered across Northern California, those trees and plants left over from the 1800’s and early 1900’s Gold Rush era.   These are the grandmother trees that have become climate resilient with no human attention for the last 100 years. They give the best fruit and nuts in conditions that most fruit and nut trees can not endure with large annual temperature variations. These  grandmother trees have learned to thrive under the most harsh conditions. We want to make them available to growers, gardeners and communities throughout the West Coast.

We have personally found these trees and have taken cuttings directly from the 100+ year old grandmother trees that still cling to life in ghostly, historic orchards. We offer very rare and exclusive plants – some may have only just been rediscovered.

95% of plants available during the 1800s are no longer available today.  We are saving what is left before they die. 

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Thanks to Peaceful Valley Farm and Garden Supply (originally started by our founder Amigo Bob Cantisano), a collection of some of our favorite species and varieties will be available through Peaceful Valley Farm and Garden for the 2024/25 Bareroot Season. 

Stay Tuned…

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The SOLD OUT Varieties listed below are for informational purposes only. These are many of the plants we have found and sold over the years. While some of these varieties will be available this Autumn, many will not. 

Hope is on the Horizon.

We will have historic fruit and nut trees available for preorder

November 1, 2024.

Thank you for all your Support!

Orders only accepted via the website.

Kate Wolf

Kate Wolf

Store/Apples
SKU 00022
$0.00
Sold out
Product Details

We don’t know much about this tree, except that it is a green apple still standing (barely) on an old homestead on the south shore of the North Fork of the Yuba River @2600’ in Sierra County, near Goodyears Bar. Kate Wolf was a my friend, who wrote and recorded the song “The Lilac and the Apple Tree” in the late ‘70s. Kate told me the inspiration for the song was an old homestead she had found near Goodyears Bar, where she spent her summers in her teens and 20’s. I never asked exactly where it was located, and when she passed away so early in life I regretted not having learned the location that inspired Kate. About 15 years later, talking with our mutual friend Utah Phillips I mentioned that I was curious where these plants were. Turns out Utah knew the man who might know the location. After many attempts (that’s a story in itself!) I finally learned the location from this secretive old man, as it is the homestead that his grandparents settled in the 1850s. After hiking a couple miles to this abandoned site in the forest I found the lilac and the apple! (and a rose that we are growing) We have been hiking to the site, and growing the lilac ever since, and use the proceeds from the sales of the lilac to provide financial support to Camp Winnarainbow, a performing circus camp for children and adults founded by our mutual friend Wavy Gravy. Camp Winnarainbow was one of Kate’s favorite projects. See: www.campwinnarainbow.org. For the last three years we are also producing the apple tree, and soon will have the rose as well.

Since it grows in the shade of a dense fir forest that has grown up since the 1800’s, the apple tree blooms but does not mature fruit. Perhaps you would like to plant this special heirloom and help us figure out what it is? Preserving a unique piece of our history, she is…

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Kate Wolf
Store/Apples
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