Cider & Perry Orchard + Fruit Tree Maintenance + Cidery-In-Planning

Forager Cider & Perry Orchard

We are partnering with like minded landowners & friends on Lummi Island’s Sunny Hill to plant 1.15 acres of cider apples and perry pears to create a line of ciders & perries that showcase unique terroir of Western Washington. Our first trees went in the ground in January 2025 with the bulk of the prepwork happening in the spring of 2025 and the remaining trees being planting in fall of 2025. We will document the growth of the trees and the development of the cidery here as well as on Instagram!

At the Sunny Hill site there will be at least 30 varieties of pommes planted that have their own unique flavors, growing tendencies and quirks that we are excited to learn and deal with!

Apples are separated into 4 groups and below are some apples that we will be growing from each group:

Sweet (Low acid, Low Tannin) - Golden Pippen, Claygate Pearmain, Grimes Golden & more!

Sharp (High Acid, Low Tannin) - Golden Russet, Dolgo, Hewes Virginia Crab, Goldrush, Liberty, Razor Russet, Egremont Russet, Transcendant Crab, Harrison & more!

Bittersweet (Low Acid, High Tannin) - Binet Blanc, Medaille D’or, Dabinett, Bulmers Norman, Dymock Red & more!

Bittersharp (High Acid, High Tannin) - Reinette Zabergau, Porter Perfection, Golden Hornet, Redfield, Puget Spice, Wickson & more!

Some of the pear varieties we will plant:

-Bosc, Brandy, Hendre Huffcap, Gin, Conference, Winnals Longdon, Seckal & more!

(Image Right) Harrison Apple tree on M111 rootstock freshly planted in its forever home

Orchard Services

  • Topwork: Adding desired varieties onto existing trees to quickly switch out unwanted fruit for more desirable ones.

  • Orchard Design: Different rootstocks are appropriate for different soil types and tree structure desired.

  • Grafting: adding known & desired varieties to your orchard that offer pest & disease resistance.

  • Fruit Management: Harvest & distribute to licensed cideries & food banks.

  • Orchard Management: Some pests can damage fruit and kill trees. We operate with “minimum necessary” in mind to encourage natural predators and site resilience.

  • Old tree rehabilitation: A wonderful combination of art and science, old trees are usually mangled, overgrown and crowded messes. It takes experience, patience and commitment to the pruning basics to bring old trees back, but it is so worth it!

Malus fusca bloom
Ripe Malus fusca
Salt sprayed & exposed
Ripe Malus fusca
Ready for picking
Malus fusca is small but packs a punch
The next round of Malus fusca seedlings, collected when pressed. Planted in December.
Dry & acidic, each apple offers different characteristics.
Mahonia Aquifolium "Oregon Grape" used to make a cofermented cider
Crisp & Juicy. Pest resistant fruit from an old unmanaged Whatcom County orchard.
Crabapples that produce a red juice.
From one of my favorite wild trees, this apple has nice balance of tannins, acid & sweetness. Its a young-ish tree. I've collected scionwood.
Rubus ursinus; Our native blackberry
Crabapples are great for cooking, preserving & fermenting
A neighbor and friends tree. More please!
Gravenstein; A regionally significant apple variety. A neighbor offered these to me in exchange for cider
Rubus spectabilis; Salmonberry fruit are one of the best trail snacks but the coferment I made with them was unbalanced
Most russeted apples offer natural pest resistance. I can't get enough.
Loaded.
Roadside harvest.

Cider & Perry

Judging & Evaluation

(Left) -2022 Bellewood Ciderfest in Bellingham, Washington

(Above)- 2023 NW Cider Cup in Portland, Oregon

MALUS FUSCA + WILD APPLES

Our native apple Malus fusca has many names: Pacific, Swamp or Western Crabapple, even the largest fruit are the size of a fingernail. They contain loads of sugar and even more acid. They can be difficult to harvest due to the tree’s lanky growth and the birds eagerness to pick them off before they are ripe. They are great additions to cider and excellent wildlife plants that can grow in fully inundated soils as well as high and dry exposed sites.

The desire for wild fruit is growing. It offers us information on how to manage our orchards more naturally with less resources and intervention. Wild fruit comes from wild trees which experience our full environmental conditions without the luxury of irrigation in the summer, drained fields in the winter, shade nets on the hot days and pest management strategies when there’s an infestation. this exposure to the elements is how nature conducts research and the strong and resilient trees overcome the elements to create unique fruit. Collecting the seeds from this fruit can create more resilient, environmentally adapted trees in the future. Using regionally adapted species can limit the resources needed to produce these locally made products and can lessen the need for intensive and possibly detrimental land management methods.

  • Lineup.

  • Contrasting single varietal Ciders

  • Isolated Malus fusca.

  • Mahonia aquifolium bottled & bloom.

  • Evaluations & Enjoyment.

  • Pasteurized vs. Unpasteurized side by side comparison.

  • Fresh pressed Malus fusca: 1.072 initial Specific Gravity