Bringing History to Life- the Muir-Poulsen Orchard Project
In 1897 the Muir's began building a small home on this site, with the Poulsen's adding on to what would become later known as the Muir-Poulsen farmstead. s you can see to the right, there were a number of historic features here, including an orchard of what they believe was around 500 fruit trees. Which got us to wondering, if we had an orchard like that today, could we help feed people? Would we
In August 2023, a chance encounter by a determined volunteer led to a promise of 100 trees from Ivory Homes, of our choosing, to be planted here, where over 100 years ago an orchard once stood.
Together with TreeUtah, we began planting October 2023, the tail end of the season. And then, every 6 months, we planted 20 trees more, each time a different variety, based off of what was here once upon a
We began with apples, in the south-east corner of the property, where the lone ancient apple tree still stands. Today, we call her Mother Tree, and surrounding her are now approx. 5 different varieties of apple trees. Our hope is that, once they are strong enough in around 10 years or so, we will be able to graft on more historic varieties, getting us closer to the types of apples we may have seen
April 2024 was cold, wet, and miserable, yet a team of dedicated volunteers stuck through a long 7 hours planting trees and running irrigation, and that was when we learned to run our irrigation lines prior to tree plantings- and with every tree planting, we got a little bit better.
This was our first year seeing fruit on our trees, and it was an absolutely incredible sight. They may be small, but it means that fruit is coming, and we are so excited to feed groups such as the Nomad Alliance for the unhoused, and Meals on Wheels for the elderly... once we have fruit that is edible, of course.
They weren't great, but we couldn't resist trying the fruits of our labors!