The original owner of Myrna Cook’s house was a Ukrainian woman. Cook wanted to protect her privacy, so we’ll call her Una. In 1996 Una planted 48 fruit trees, and three years later, she died unexpectedly, young. When Cook purchased the property in 2001, the house had sat empty for two years, and the trees were sick and diseased. Cook didn’t even realize there was an orchard.
“I just thought that there were a few fruit trees there. And then once we moved in, I realized there were a lot of fruit trees,” Cook said. “I was a reluctant horticulturist, because I didn’t really know anything about fruit. Just before we bought it, the original owner passed away, and she had a dream to own an orchard and have a business. I found her plans in the attic of the house, once we bought it, and started to renovate. So I sort of picked up where she left off.”
It was the plans that captivated Cook.
“She had plans to make preserves, and she had prep tables, and she had installed a cold shelter I guess for storing over the winter,” Cook said.
People told Cook she was crazy, that the trees were too sick, that she shouldn’t even have bought the property in the state it was in. But by this time she was hooked on Una’s dream. She collected fruit samples from every tree. She submitted them to the U Mass Extension Program, and they sent her back a 30-page color report telling her what kind of trees she had inherited, and how to keep them alive. She bought books on horticulture and fruit growing and combed the internet for workshop dates. She enlisted the help of Spooner Ornamental Care, a plant health care provider in Hatchville, and hired a landscaper to help with pruning and year-round maintenance.
Of the 48 original trees, 30 are alive and healthy today. It hasn’t been easy. It’s taken a lot for Cook to carry out this inherited dream.
“You have to get really used to putting everything on the back burner, because fruit wants to be picked when it wants to be picked. And you lose a lot of fruit. You don’t make a fortune on it. It’s definitely got to be a labor of love,” said Cook.
A few years ago, for the first time Cook had fruit healthy enough to offer for sale. She started selling to local bakers and restaurant owners – and even at the Falmouth Farmers’ market, where I met her. She was slowly taking on the role Una had imagined.
“I’ve become a fruit salesperson and owner of an orchard. It’s a great feeling to realize someone else’s dream. I guess it’s become my dream, too,” Cook said.
“Has it?” I asked. “Or does it feel sort of forced?
“It’s not really my dream – it’s forced,” said Cook. “But I love it. I’ve learned to really love it. It is amazing to work with nature and see how fantastic it is. It’s really given me a greater appreciation of how food is grown – or how food isn’t grown – these days. It’s great to be able to grow it and see other people enjoy it too.”
Cook is proud of her work on the orchard. She still can hardly believe that people want to buy her fruit—that Una’s dream has taken off so well in her hands, but she’s happy it has. When I asked her why she did it, she said it was like picking a message up off the street. Suddenly, her whole direction changed.
You can learn more about growing your own fruit trees, and find a recipe for buttermilk-pear cake with a lemon-thyme glaze on Elspeth’s blog, Diary of a Locavore.
