My kids would roll their eyes when dad would spot a historical marker on the side of the road since I am one of those people who stop and read them. When I was visiting my daughter and granddaughter in Riverside I read about the original navel orange tree, still growing in the middle of a busy road. This is the tree that all navel oranges descended from. My two favorite subjects, history and horticulture. That's Teddy Roosevelt transplanting the other original navel orange. It later died. The trees were brought up from Brazil and planted in what was then the very beginning of the orange boom that built southern California.
It’s apple harvest time on Apple Hill. Located about 15 miles from here it is made up of all sorts of small apple farms that sell all the goodies, pies, cider, arts & crafts, etc. It was originally made up of pears which all died do to disease in the 1950’s and 60’s. They came up with the idea of planting apples and selling direct to the consumer.
One of the original homesteads is the
Larsen Apple Farm, started in the 1860’s. We went up last week to eat pie and drink cider. I love checking out the old Rhode Island Greening apple located just across from the big apple barn. Planted in 1860 the tree still produces! How amazing that it was planted when Lincoln was president.
