Olmsted's Orchard

Henry H. Olmsted was born in Lowell, Me and raised in Charleston. In 1950 he purchased a 40 acre parcel from a 120 acre plot of land that was being sold by Henry Dunham. Being a thrifty soul and not wanting to go into debt after losing all his savings due to ill health, he opted to go with just the land that was on the east side of Route 15. The parcel of land was mostly an alder swamp with the water draining from Bull Hill right across the land.

The first thing that was needed to be done was to dig a drainage ditch from the road to the woods so the land would drain and be usable. The first few years were spent pulling alders, plowing, and then seeding buckwheat to plow under to enrich the soil. All this work was accomplished using a small John Deere model “L” tractor.

As the land became workable, strawberries and vegetables were grown to feed the family and surplus was sold at the roadside. There were bees for pollination and honey. Henry had always had a keen interest in apple trees. Before he purchased the 40 acres he planted 500 seedlings. These seedlings were growing under established apple trees on his old homestead and in the woods.

After Henry purchased the land he grafted some apple trees that were on the land to get some quick fruit production. Grafting existing trees gets fruit four years sooner. When the seedlings were three years old he grafted them and when they were five years old he transplanted them on the Orchard property. As the land improved he kept adding apple trees, some seedlings were

grown from cider pulp. These all produced big, old, standard trees which as they grew became more and more difficult to take care of. By 1964 the orchard had grown to 1000 trees. David, the youngest son, made a commitment to attend Cornell University to find out how to grow fruit correctly and then come home and help run the farm.

In 1970 Henry retired from the machine shop and devoted his full time to growing fruit. Apples were the largest commodity, but strawberries, raspberries, cherries, plums and pears were also grown. The farm continued to prosper through the 1970’s. Henry retired from the farm in 1980. David, who worked in a factory as well as on the farm, took on the full responsibility of the

farm with his wife Pat. The particularly bad weather in 1979 to 1980 necessitated the removal and replanting of most of the trees. There was only one block of 150 trees left. The removal and replanting of trees took most of the 1980’s and early 1990’s. Since David continued to work in the factory, the down sizing of the farm became inevitable. Entering into the 2000’s the major crops are apples (23 varieties) and a few plums. While the first planting were all on standard rootstock giving trees up to 40 feet high, the newer plantings are all on EM7 rootstock which gives a tree about 12 to 14 feet tall. The emphasis now is on pick your own, as well as roadside sales. A new sales building was added in 1984 which has enhanced the growth of the roadside sales.

In 2003 a gift shop was added to promote some of our talented neighbors by giving them an opportunity to display and sell their crafts. The shop became an authorized dealer to carry crafts made at the Maine State Prison at Thomaston in 2005.

Currently the orchard consists of 37 acres and 700 apple trees. There are 7 acres devoted entirely to the orchard, 17 acres in field/ orchard, and 10 acres in tilled field to grow pumpkins and squash.

Orchard History