Schmidt Road Ranch

Some of our Gravenstein apple trees were planted in 1887. We are two properties away from the site where Nathaniel Griffith and Luther Burbank first introduced the Gravenstein to Sonoma County, in the 1880's. Because of the flawless apples these old trees still produce, I believe they are of that original strain, probably passed from neighbor to neighbor. When I was a child, this was a working farm, with ten acres of Grav's, most of them planted in the 1950's. Many of those trees have fallen prey to disease and neglect, leaving us with approx. 2 acres of apples. Those which have survived have had to fight for their very lives, growing around and through encroaching oaks. For the past five years, my husband and I have been working to free them from their captors, that being - - oak trees, bay trees, blackberry bushes, poison oak vines, and their own dead wood. There is still much work to be done, but the trees are rewarding us handsomely. I have been selling my crop at a farm stand in the driveway, but am open to people ordering or visiting via this website. We have both "old Fashioned Yellow" and the lesser regarded, but still wonderfully tasty, Red variety. No pesticides, no chemicals, basically no care.