Friends of Pipers Orchard

6th annual festival was a great success, with about 275 attendees, tasty fresh-pressed cider, 11 terrific pies in the pie contest, tasty pies and cider available from Tillie’s Cafe, music by Blue Star Creeper, kids crafts, informative booths, a trip to Piper’s Orchard, wonderful weather, and electricity – which greatly facilitated the interesting presentations in the Carkeek Park Environmental Learning Center.

We thank all the volunteers who helped make the festival a success (including Boy Scouts, Campfire and Hillel), the Holman Road QFC that provided us with a generous gift card to purchase supplies, Swansons Nursery that provided a $50 gift card for the winning pie, Starbucks for tasty coffee, and Seattle Parks and Recreation for providing staffing and facilities in support of the festival.

Following are photos from the festival.

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Particular thanks go out to:

• Presenters Tim Smith and Kathy Mendelson
• Tillie’s Cafe lead Fran Clifton with kitchen support Robert and Judy
• Pie Contest lead Jenn Dunlap, and judges Lori Brakken, Jon Rowley, Bob Norton
• Cider presser Will Murray
• Music lead Will Morgan
• Artist in residence Dave Francis
• Apple health and harvest coordinator Don Ricks
• Set-up lead Ingela Wanerstrand
• Master of ceremonies Bob Baines
• Seattle Parks and Recreation staff and volunteer coordinator Brian Gay – Mr Signage

The fifth annual Festival of Fruit and Piper’s Orchard 120th Anniversary a great success!

On Saturday, September 24th we held a very successful festival, with over 200 visitors, great presentations, apple cider, apple pie, kids crafts, music and a visit to the orchard. The weather was the best we’ve ever had, in the mid 70’s and sunny. We even managed to make the festival very environmentally friendly, due to a total power outage at the park (and surrounding neighborhood) during the festival. Good thing we had a mechanical as well as an electric cider press! Thank you to all the volunteers who helped make the festival a rousing success.

Click here to watch a youtube video about the festival.

Susan Dolan, our keynote speaker, is a historical landscape architect for the National Park Service and gave a fascinating talk about historic orchards in America.

Meanwhile, many hands helped press cider through the mechanical press.

After Susan’s presentation, David Randal Gould, discussed fruit foraging in Seattle. Gail Savina of City Fruit talked about the Seattle Parks orchard stewardship program. And Ken Workman, a descendant of both Chief Seattle and Jesse Hiatt (who discovered the Hawkeye, which became the Red Delicious apple), described the historic Duwamish tribe diet.

Meanwhile, visitors were buying pie and cider at Tillie’s Cafe, apple pies were being judged, kids were making bee houses, music was entertaining the crowd, and visitors were learning the identity of their apples, tasting apples from the orchard, and learning about mason bees and other points of interest.

Finally, it was time to announce the winners of the apple pie contest. First prize was a $50 gift card to Swansons Nursery! Then everyone lined up to buy pie.

In the afternoon, many visitors head up to Piper’s Orchard, where they learned about orchard history, the heirloom variety grapes growing there, permaculture, and organic pest management.