The Monadnock Heritage Nursery was founded in Spring 2007 as a nonprofit biodiversity project dedicated to preserving and distributing rare and regional varieties of fruit trees to home orchardists and others throughout the Monadnock Region of southwest New Hampshire. Another goal of the project is to educate people in the “forgotten skills” of orcharding, such as grafting and pruning. All proceeds from tree sales go to fund the nursery project itself, and also help support the local programs and initiatives of the Slow Food Monadnock chapter. The nursery is a regional preservation orchard affiliated with RAFT’s nationwide Heritage Orchard Initiative.
Hundreds of fruit trees (primarily apples, but also pears, quinces, and other fruits) have been grafted onto semidwarf rootstocks and planted out in the nursery. Rare and unusual New Hampshire and New England apples are a focus of the project, and currently MHN is growing out examples of extremely hard-to-find varieties, including Black Oxford, Blue Pearmain, Garden Royal, Granite Beauty, Hunt Russet, Kearsarge, Milden, Mother, Nodhead, Orange Sweet, Starkey, and Winthrop Greening. As of July 2009, around 100 trees have been sold to home orchardists and garden centers.
In addition to old apples of regional importance, MHN collects scionwood each winter and swaps material with other orchards, grafting and growing out non-native apples in trials to see how they will perform in New England. Currently we have several apples from the Southern Appalachians including Harrison, Old-Fashioned Limbertwig, Parmar, and Yates. We also specialize in interesting or exceptional European heirloom apples such as Ashmead’s Kernel, Lady, Pitmaston Pineapple, and Fenouillet Gris.
The Granite Beauty apple, which originated before 1815 in Weare, NH, was located in only one commercial orchard (on two semidwarf trees), and was considered functionally extinct before it was “adopted” by the nursery and collected and grafted by Ben Watson, Rich Stadnik, and other interested nurserymen. Now it is being maintained in two other commercial orchards, is listed on the Slow Food USA Ark of Taste, and will be sold through future Fedco Trees catalogs.
Beginning in 2010, MHN plans to experiment with a greater diversity of grafted fruit trees (peaches, quinces, pears, and cherries), to preserve rare and historic varieties and to evaluate their ability to grow in the Northeast.