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Heirloom Fruit and Nut Explorers

Scroll to the bottom of the page to order Amigo’s book Know Your Soil.

FYI, There is a ghost in our website.  If you see the Dr. Van Fleet Rose for sale, it is the ghost. We can’t see it on our end, but some folks do and have tried to order it.  Until the rest of our plants go live, it is not available. So, consider yourself special if you do see it.  Sorry for any inconvenience. 

All of your purchases fund our Non Profit, and your your tax-deductible donations help keep us going! Thank you for whatever ways you support us!

We should be back on track with our bareroot sales starting November 1, 2023. Be sure we have you on our email list for notifications about when our plants are available.

We will repost all variety information and  pictures soon 

We have about 262 varieties of 21 species and offer around 150 of those varieties each year.  Fortunately, we discovered that the trees that we experimentally chip budded last year, withstood the late freezes and hailstorm of 2022. Needless to say, we are changing over to that grafting method, but it is a two-year process.

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We are not your average nursery!

We have passionately searched to re-discover the living, historic plants still scattered across Northern California, left over from the Gold Rush. We have personally found these trees and have taken cuttings directly from the ancient, 100+ year old grandmother trees that are still alive in these ghostly orchards. We are a very small nursery and offer very rare and exclusive plants, some we may have only just found. So, there are a limited supply of some varieties. We are sorry for any inconvenience.

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Plant Pickups are pre-scheduled at
Sweetland Garden and Mercantile
North San Juan, CA or Weiss Brother’s Nursery in Grass Valley, CA

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We urge you to sign up for our email list and like our Facebook for early notification of when our plants will be available. 

Email us at thefgi@gmail.com and request to be added to the email list. 

 

Note on Shipping

Shipping costs to the East Coast are $80-$140. If you just get one tree it is quite expensive, but if you get a few trees it’s not so bad. We make no money on shipping as these are UPS Shipping costs.

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THANK YOU FOR ALL THE SUPPORT!

Thank you Everyone for supporting this project!  While the nursery sales normally provide approximately 50% of our operating budget, we rely on donors and occasional grants. In the past we have received generous grants from UNFI, the Gaia Foundation, the Bill Graham Foundation and the Latrobe Fund. With the pandemic there has been a drop off in grants and donations. So, we are grateful for your purchases and generous donations.
In the face of modern industrial agriculture we have lost 95% of our genetic diversity, and with your help all of us are saving the very best gems still growing throughout California’s Gold Rush Countrysides.

If you feel our work is important, please consider a donation to help save these endangered varieties. Thank you!

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Happy Planting!

 

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If you have questions, please contact us at   (530) 292-3619 or thefgi@gmail.com


We accept orders only via the website

 

Click on the pictures to view the varieties

 

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Kate Wolf Lilac

00111
$30.00
In stock
1
Product Details

This beautiful heirloom is growing on a very old abandoned homestead along the banks of the North Fork of the Yuba River at 2600’ near Goodyears Bar in Sierra County. The great singer-songwriter Kate Wolf was a long time friend of Amigo Bob's. She wrote and recorded the song “The Lilac and the Apple Tree" in the late ‘70s. Kate told Amigo that the inspiration for the song was an old homestead she had found near Goodyears Bar, where she spent her summers in her teens and 20s. He never asked exactly where it was located, and when she passed away, too early in life, he regretted not having learned the location of these plants that inspired her. About 15 years later, Amigo was talking with their mutual friend Utah Phillips and mentioned that he still was curious where these plants were located. Turns out Utah knew the man who might know the location. After many attempts (that's a story in itself!) Amigo Bob finally learned the location from this secretive old man, who finally confessed that it was the homestead that his grandparents settled in the 1850s. After hiking a couple miles to this abandoned site in the forest Amigo 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. 100% of the proceeds from the sales of the lilacs 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.

We will offer the Kate Wolf apple and rose from that beautiful homestead and song soon.

You can hear Kate sing “The Lilac and the Apple” here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q83NqwtdBZk

Please Note: We do not ship potted plants individually. It is too expensive, but we will ship them when ordered with other barefoot trees. By themselves, they are only available for pick up in N. San Juan.

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