The Apple Class, Geneva, NY, September 11, 2026

Skylar and I joined Todd Little-Siebold and his students from College of the Atlantic and drove to Geneva, NY where we spent three days visiting the amazing USDA apple repository collection as well as a number of orchards and cider-makers in the Ithaca-Geneva area. It was long drive and a fantastic trip.

We spent eight hours over two days in the USDA apple collection, an immense orchard of thousands of apple varieties from all over the world. The diversity of fruit size, colors, shapes and flavors is staggering. This is one of the two or three most important “Malus” collections in the world.

Our orchard visits included Black Diamond orchard, Perry City Orchard and Nursery, Red Byrd Cider and South Hill Cider. We got royally treated with tours and tastings wherever we went. Everyone was generous with their time, and our only regret was that we couldn’t stay longer and visit a lot more folks. In future Orchard Reports I’ll feature some of the orchards we visited.

A non-orchard highlight was a trip to the Ithaca Farmers’ Market which features produce and products exclusively grown or made within 30 miles of Ithaca. It’s held year-round - outside under a long timber-framed roof in temperate weather and indoors in winter. There should one of these in every county in the US.