Twenty of the Best Things about the Salt Spring Apple Festival

Website:  saltspringapplefestival.org

Sunday, Sept 29. 2019   is the date of the 2019 Apple Festival

THIS IS WHY WE CALL SALT SPRING ISLAND 

 ‘APPLE HEAVEN’.

1. 1. Salt Spring Island, BC grows over 500 apple varieties and at the 2018 Apple Festival, at Fulford Hall, we displayed 430 apple varieties arranged alphabetically, all grown ORGANICALLY on Salt Spring Island. These apples are for display only.  All tasting happens on each HOST farm.  The labels at Fulford Hall will indicate which farm grows each variety, so you should be able to trace down any variety you wish that is on display and go to the farm that grows it.
      To see a photo of each of 430 apple variety in the 2018 Apple Display, use the link below.https://saltspringapplefestival.org/fulford-apple-display/2018-display/
   2. You can buy the entire apple collection from Fulford Hall, on Monday, Sept 30 (the day after the Apple Festival), and create your own apple celebration. In 2018, we had 430 apple varieties on display.  We do not know how many varieties will be available this year, until after we set up the display on Sat, Sept 28.  This big apple collection will be sold to the highest bidder in Canada.  We will deliver the collection to Victoria and then the purchaser is responsible for shipping from Victoria.  To support the local growers, who work so hard to collect all these amazing Apple varieties, Apple Festival pays the 5 main growers a total of $1500 each year.   It is our way of saying, A BIG THANK YOU to them for all the work required to grow and collect all these apple varieties.  By selling the collection, we simply are trying to recover some of those funds.   Contact:  Harry Burton at 250-653-2007  or  harryburton@shaw.ca   if you are interested.
   3. Each of the 12 orchards on the self guided tour, offers tasting of the best apples they grow, often around 80 varieties per farm, picked at their prime. Below is an overhead of the Tasting Table at Apple Luscious Organic Orchard, with 65 TASTING varieties, arranged alphabetically, from our 200 varieties.  Track down any desired apple varieties, by noting the coloured  GROWER stickers on the label at the Fulford Hall display.  Website:  appleluscious.com
   4. The amazing Salt Spring Pie Ladies, who are celebrating their 100th anniversary in 2020, baked 193 apple pies for the 2018 Apple Festival. They identify the apple variety used in each pie, so you can research your favourite baking apple, by eating apple pies.  Here is their Apple Pie variety selection from 2018 at the Fulford Hall.
   5. Enjoy the Best CIDER from 2 great Salt Spring Cideries, Ciderworks and Salt Spring Wild Cider.
      a) From CiderWorks, (at the Salt Spring Apple Company), an all ORGANIC Estate Grown cidery offering (from the left), Firkin, Red Rebel and Serious Cider. Website: https://www.saltspringapplecompany.com/
      b) Salt Spring Wild Cider strives to create quality cider using blends from 100-year-old heritage trees, from organic orchards, and from wild apple trees that live in farmers’ fields on Salt Spring Island. Website: http://www.saltspringwildcider.com/
   7. In 2018, thirteen farm had great lunches created by our fabulous Salt Spring chefs. You can eat right on the farm you are visiting.
      Then finish off with delicious desserts also.  A culinary delight.
   8. Your self guided tour of all the 17 farms on the tour, will demonstrate the DIVERSITY and UNIQUENESS of each Apple Festival Venue.  In 1872, Samuel Beddis planted 40 varieties of apples as a survival strategy, on this waterfront homestead.  147 years later, this Beddis Castle (shown below) still has some original apple trees, but now is a manicured waterfront castle, where the deer roam freely all year long, but the public only gets to visit one day a year – on Apple Festival Day.  Note that the photographer below is leaning on an old apple tree.  Thank You, Susan, for opening up your gardens to the public.
      The Apple Festival diversity is profound, including also:
      1. Apple Luscious Organic Orchard, a wild, Certified Organic permaculture orchard with 200+ tasty apple varieties, where chickens roam the whole orchard or
      2. the Salt Spring Apple Company,  taking ‘An Apple a Day’ to a whole new level with 365+ Heritage, Connoisseur and Cider varieties.
   9. This is your chance to learn about Organic Apple Growing directly from the farmers, who will all be at their farm and eager to share knowledge.  You will be exposed to many different concepts and farming methods.   Below is Bob Weeden, who grows 138 Heritage apple varieties on his historical Whims Farm.
   10. You will get to explore rare apple varieties that do not exist anywhere else in Canada, and are being preserved by the Salt Spring growers.
   11. At Apple Luscious Organic Orchard explore about 40 of the best tasting Red Flesh apple varieties in the world.  Harry calls these apples THE APPLES OF THE FUTURE.  The pink colour is due to antioxidants, which give a great sweet-tart taste and are highly sought after by chefs also as they bake up pink, with great flavor.
   12. Even adults can become a Kid for a Day, with an opportunity to get your Face Painted for FREE.  Note the young lady below also has a pink fleshed, Hidden Rose apple.
   13. A great chance to learn all you can about Honey Bees and Orchard Bees, the main pollinators of apple.  Virtually all apples need to be pollinated, so bees and insects are necessary.  Plus, since bees are facing some survival pressures these days, learn how to help optimize their numbers.
   14. Bring in any Unknown Apple and getting it ID’d by our APPLE ID experts, Lori Brakken on the left below,from Seattle and Ann Aylard,  on the right, from Sidney.   If they can’t get all apples ID’d during Apple Festival Day, they will take your unknown apples away in a paper bag (with your contact info written on the bag) as homework and report back to you on the variety name.
   15. Every year, local artists create beautiful posters and artwork for the Apple Festival. All posters below will be for sale, with proceeds going to a local NGO (SOLID) which works in Lesotho, Africa.
       In 2019, we have 3 artists creating 3 totally different Apple Festival posters that will be For Sale at Apple Festival.Below is the AMAZING Briony Penn 2019 Apple Festival PosterIt names about 350 Salt Spring apple varieties (from the list of 430 that were displayed at the 2018 Apple Festival) in the shape of Salt Spring Island.
       All names are in layers, like a tasty baklava dessert. Then there are apple history anecdotes on the border and in the shape of apples.We also have posters coming from Kaleigh Barton and Diana Morris.Each poster will be an amazing work of art, and also as diverse as the Apples of Salt Spring.
       Funds from this Poster sales will be directed to the artist’s choice of charity.
   16. Apple Festival also delights in showing off of our Great Salt Spring artists, such as Amarah Gabriel, shown below, with her beautiful apple paintings…
       …and the late Maud Bridgman, (1868-1943) who painted on Salt Spring in the 1920’s.  We had a beautiful display of about 20 Maud Bridgman watercolours, which formed the backdrop for the apple display at Fulford Hall in 2016.
   17. Disbersements of Apple Festival Funds.
       The Salt Spring Apple Festival always happens on the Sunday of the 4^th weekend after Labour Day, (so late Sept or early Oct).   On Apple Festival Sunday, about 1500 apple lovers roam the island, connecting with apples and the apple growers, enjoying fabulous lunches or discovering each of 18 amazing venues open to them.  BLISS and PEACE fill the island.   What a lovely atmosphere fills the island.In the other 364 days of the year, profit from the Apple Festival is spread out, on Salt Spring and around the world helping make the world a better place.  We call theseDisbursements or Apple Ripples.Here are some examples of some Apple Ripples from the Apple Festival 2018 profits that has been redirected to good causes so far.  Total Disbersement to Date:  $11,200A)  COMMUNITY (Local)
       a)  Stainless Steel kitchen upgrade at Beaver Point Hall (shown below)  ($1000)
       b)  Purchase portion of new meat saw at Salt Spring Abattoir ($1000)
       c)  Help repair storm damage at Little Red School House, next to Beaver Point Hall ($1000)
       d)  Rex Welland Memorial Bursary to local high school students   ($1250)B)  COMMUNITY ARTS (Local)
       a)  Commission  a documentary of apple grower, Bob Weeden ($500)
       b)  Donation towards a Book on Ancient Silk Weaving Methods by Karen Selk ($500)C)  PROJECTS AWAY
       a)  La Societe de Marin, Honfleur, France  where we donated some Apple Festival money to their annual Maritime Festival, which blesses the current feet of boats, celebrates their marine history and also remembers those sailors lost at sea.  Honfleur is at the mouth of the Seine River, downstream from Paris.                   ($180)Images of the Festival in Honfleur are available if you do a Google Search for   societe de marin, Honfleur france
       b)  The Lesotho Solar Cooker Project in Africa received a donation of 3 solar cookers, delivered in Feb 2019.                                                                        ($405)
       c)  One of our local travelers even was able to present an earthquake victim in Bali, with $100 from us to help rebuild his house.                                          ($100)
   18. Apple Juice, in the Old Fashioned MethodDuring the Apple Festival you can experience apple juice pressing, in the old fashioned method, where the variety of apple used is known, where you can see the apples being chipped and then watch the press being turned to squeeze out the juice.   You hear it dripping into the container and then you get to taste the real thing.  FRESH PRESSED APPLE JUICE, where you even get to know the apple variety used.
       
       
   19.  Attend the Annual Apple Holics Anonymous Meeting (Salt Spring Chapter).In case, you suspect you might be afflicted, here are the dreaded 12 Symptoms.The 12 SYMPTOMS
       1. You have no control over acquisition of fruit trees.  You have an uncontrollable, insatiable urge to always acquire more apple varieties
       2. At times, this ATAS (Apple Tree Acquistion Syndrome) habit has harmed others.
       3. You will buy a apple tree, even if you do not have a space to plant it.  You know you will find a space somewhere.
       4. You spend money you DO NOT HAVE, to purchase a fruit tree.
       5. You will spend money that is designated for necessities, such as food, mortgages or utilities, to buy NEW FRUIT TREES.
       6. You will hide apple tree purchases from your partner.
       7. You are drawn to a large gathering of fruit tree growers in the spring, especially if there is going to be scionwood available. The magnetic forces of many scionwood varieties, is similar to the attraction of party animals to music.
       8. You belong to every apple organization that is possible, such as NAFEX (The North American Fruit Explorers), HOS (Home Orchard Society), SFTS (The Seattle Fruit Tree Society, WCFS (The Western Cascade Fruit Society), CRFG (California Rare Fruit Growers), BCFTA (British Columbia Fruit Tree Association), SFF Southern Fruit Fellowship and MIDFEX (Midwest Fruit Explorers).
       9. If you are planting apple trees, such as those on M111, requiring 16 foot spacing, you will shrink that spacing to 13 feet in order to fit in more trees.
       10. You are never satisfied and are always looking for new apple varieties.
       11. You are constantly tuning up your orchard, by removing some varieties, in order to fit in a new one.
       12. Your favourite excuse for not succeeding is always,  “OH WELL.  I WILL GET THAT RIGHT NEXT YEAR.”NOW JUST RELAX.  No meetings to attend.  Since NO ONE HAS EVER BEEN CURED OF THIS AFFLICTION, we have given up trying to cure anyone.  So just go to Apple Festival, enjoy every apple related experience you can, have a MEETING OF ONE (with yourself), and go on stoking your Apple Habit.
   20. Get Children connected to nature, farming and apples.One of my greatest thrills at the 2018 Apple Festival last year, was to have 2 ten year olds from Salt Spring, come to me at separate times and ask me to pick them some Atalanta Crab apples.  They had been to the tasting table with about 60 apple varieties from Apple Luscious Organic Orchard (Website:  appleluscious.com), and this small, not pretty crab apple was their best tasting apple.Apple Festival is a great experience for everyone from 2 to 102, but in particular, it is great for KIDS, as shown in the photo below of Kids enjoying the apple display at Fulford Hall.It will connect Kids with apples, growers, nature, farming and food.
       I also have a challenge for Adults.  Let’s see if we can get more adults to get their face painted this year.  Let that KID IN YOU ESCAPE FOR A DAY.
   21. Buy an Apple Tree from a selection of about 500 varieties.

       Two orchards on the Apple Festival Tour sell apple trees on Salt Spring Island.

       a)       The Salt Spring Apple Company sells potted dwarf apple trees of about 325 varieties. Website:  saltspringapplecompany.com

       b)      Apple Luscious Organic Orchard sells semi-standard apple trees, columnar apple trees and INTERSTEM dwarf apple trees of about 200 varieties   Website: appleluscious.com

DATE:                  Sunday, Sept 29, 2019TIME:                   9 AM to 5 PM

LOCATION:        Fulford Hall plus 18 venues

WEBSITE:           saltspringapplefestival.org

TICKETS:            Available on Sunday, Sept 29, 2019 only

BUY TICKETS:   At Fulford Hall or outside Ganges Info Centre.

CONTACT INFO:
Harry Burton
250-653-2007
harryburton@shaw.ca