Stay tuned for a full report on our field trip to Kentucky to visit some northern nut growers. Coming soon!
The Nutty Buddy Co-op
The Buncombe Fruit and Nut Club
A Regional Gathering of Fruits and Nuts in Eastern/Central Kentucky
October 3, 4, 5
One weekend, 3 on-site field trips with veteran orchardists, open space, mead circle, and camping out.
You can join at any time during the weekend. Come to one or all the tours.
Bring food, water, samples of what you are growing, homebrew, something for show and tell…
If you are at all interested in growing fruits and nuts and want to learn from people who have learned what they know through direct field experience, this weekend gathering should be of interest and well worth its while to attend. If you have any inclination of putting trees in the ground, already have, or are wandering how to improve upon the ones you have long since had, this gathering should well be considered. If you are an old fart that has been doing this forever and think your experience would be of use to younger folks getting started, by all means, please join us.
We, at the Buncombe Fruit and Nut Club in Asheville, NC have been itching to get together with other fruit and nut enthusiasts around the region, so we have planned an extended field trip this October 3, 4, 5th into Kentucky. It is a casual affair akin to an oldtime camp meeting. The focus is on veteran amateur orchardists who have learned what they know directly from experience growing their trees and experimenting for decades. This gathering is self directed. We will organize the bones of the trip, but we all work together to make it what it is. It will be wild, exciting, unpredictable, exhillerating, inspiring and cheap.
This trip should be of interest to those growing nuts as well as fruits. Admittedly, there is a slight preference to nuts with our choosen hosts but obscure fruits will not be overlooked.
About our hosts:
Mica Wiles Cedar Creek Winery
This will be our home base for Friday and Saturday nights
Mica and his family run Cedar creek Winery and have graciously made their farm available for camping. We hope to have time to get a tour from Mica and his father and maybe some practical tips from professional vintners who make meads and other small batch home brews.
Clifford England owns and operates England’s Odditorium of fruits and nuts. A voracious collector of genetics from around the world, there’s nothing this guy isn’t excited about. Come see a countless gallery of fruit and nut trees and learn what is doing well and what is not from an industrious mom and pop nurseryman whose grafting knife rides the cutting edge of fruit and nut exploration.
Larry Dalton started grafting and planting his 2 acres of nuts and some native fruits in 1981. If you want to create a small forest garden or orchard, why not save yourself 30 years of mistakes and learn from 30 years of hard earned successes? An amazing opportunity to touch on years of experience to help direct your vision of perennial agriculture and orcharding.
Fred Blankenship – I met Fred at the Kentucky Northern Nut Grower meeting in Kentucky a few years back and he has single-handedly lifted me from a wanna be nut grower to an extremely dangerous nut grower. Fred questions everything, and answers it from experience. Guys like him always impress me with their independent ideas and innovations. He is incredibly generous with his knowledge and his genetic material and the 2.5 hour drive out his way will be well worth the effort.
Friday evening- gather at Mica’s winery, set up camp, campfire, preliminary mead circle
Saturday Morning- Meet at Larry Dalton’s Orchard @ 8:30 AM. Tour and questions.
Saturday Afternoon- Arrive at England’s Nursery in Mckee, KY at 1:00 PM
(In the spirit of reciprocation we have offered Clifford an hour or so of our time to help around the nursery in trade for his generosity.)
Saturday Evening- Back to Mica’s. Eat dinner, campfire, mead circle, Show and Tell, open space (if time permitting)
Sunday Morning- Travel to Fred Blankenship’s Tour starts at 10:00
Sunday night- go home, sleep it off, and dream of a world full of fruits and nuts
Camping: If you are camping please let us know at least a week before the event and plan to kick in $10.00 to help offset any costs
Hotels: If camping isn’t your bag there are some hotels near Mica’s so you can join us for evening festivities but be close to comfortable accommodations. (see below)
If you decide to come to any of these events apart from the main group you are on your own for directions (a little bit of a scavanger hunt). The physical addresses of our hosts are as follows:
Mica Wiles (Friday and Saturday evening):
294 Cedar Creek Ln, Somerset, KY 42501
Directions on website: http://www.cedarcreekvineyards.net/index.php/find-us
Larry Dalton (Saturday morning):
3102 Vince Rd
Nicholasville, KY 40356
Clifford England’s Nursery (Saturday afternoon):
152 Hwy 2004
Mckee, KY 40447
Fred Blankenship (Sunday morning):
2386 N. Grandview Church Rd.
We’ll meet Fred at the Cracker Barrel at the junction of I-65
and Hwy 62/ Mulberry Rd in Elizabethtown at 10:30 and proceed to his orchard
Hotels in Somerset near Mica:
RSVP and More Info:
Send an email with your name, contact info, and whether you or not you plan to camp to Justin at firstname.lastname@example.org or call him at (845) 401-3700
Updates will be posted at nuttybuddycollective.wordpress.com/kentucky
It is our hopes that amateur fruit and nut enthusiasts will get together more often in a spirit of fun, support, and cooperation around what we love to do the most- grow and eat fruits and nuts.