Sign up for Antique Apple Grafting Seminar at Garfield Farm Museum

Learn how to grow antique apple trees at Garfield Farm Museum's 35th Antique Apple Tree Grafting seminar on Sunday, March 5.

It will begin at 1:30 p.m. at the museum, off Garfield Road in Campton Hills.

For $40, participants make three grafts of heirloom varieties to take home for planting this spring.

Reservations are required by calling (630) 584-8485 or emailing info@garfieldfarm.org.

Dan Bussey of Wisconsin will return to help a new generation learn how to preserve historic and favorite varieties of apples.

As it takes up to six years for the trees to produce fruit, making grafts and getting them in the ground this spring gives one plenty of time to master various apple recipes for the pies or cider of 2029.

Bussey will provide several types of scions to graft on to the root stock. His incredible wealth of knowledge of apple types is itself phenomenal.

He truly has written the book on apple varieties as he has published a 3,500-page seven-volume tome on the great diversity of this fruit.

This depth of knowledge in traditional skills is becoming as rare as the many historic varieties that face extinction without a new generation of champions.

The 375-acre Garfield Farm Museum is the only historically intact former 1840s Illinois prairie farmstead and teamster inn being restored by donors and volunteers from 3,500 households in 37 states as an 1840s working farm museum.

Garfield Farm Museum is located 5 miles west of Geneva, off Route 38 on Garfield Road.

For information call (630) 584-8485 or email info@garfieldfarm.org.

Visit www.garfieldfarm.org or www.facebook.com/GarfieldFarmMuseum/.