Little Tree Orchard Field Work

A New Roots crew visited Littletree Orchard, along with a teacher, two parent volunteers and a Cornell intern. We received a tour from Amarra, the young woman whose parents founded Littletree in the early 1970's. Amarra plans to take over the business in a few years, and walked us through the more than 10,000 trees on their hillside orchard, teaching us about their many varieties of apples, cherries, peaches and berries. She answered our questions about grafting, integrated pest management methods, apple picking job prospects, growing up at Littletree and some of the joys and challenges of running an apple business. She also showed us their antique apple press and let us walk into their humongous apple cooler. We all picked apples - some to take home and LOTS of "grounders" (which we later used to make a huge batch of apple crisp). We finished off the day with fresh pressed apple cider and hot cider donuts.