Walk through an old Shenandoah Valley orchard and you’ll see apples with names, stories, and flavors passed down through family heirloom varieties. Virginia apple farmer and historian, Diane Flynt, whose latest book is Wild, Tamed, Lost, Revived: The Surprising History of Apples in the South. She spoke with WMRA’s Chris Boros.
Diane Flynt
My grandparents were farmers in Georgia, and they were that kind of small-time farmer that that we've largely lost today. Granddaddy worked at a gas station and drove the school bus, and farmed on the side.
WMRA Chris Boros
So, what led you to start growing apples? I mean, was there a part in your life where you just fell in love with apples?
Diane Flynt
I think it was more prosaic than that. And what led me to apples was place. My husband and I wanted to have an agriculture-based business and life. We both had been in the business world for many years, and it took it took half a dozen years to make this happen. But we eventually purchased a farm in Southwest Virginia, near Floyd, Virginia, and I wanted to grow a crop that had some commercial value, and this is apple territory. You know, the cookbook author and chef Ronnie Lundy calls Appalachia Appalachia, and they're great, of course, great orchards in the Shenandoah. Long, you know, fourth and fifth generation orchardists there, as well as up on Bent Mountain in Roanoke, and down in Cana, which is just down the mountain from us. So apples made sense, but also I was interested in a value-added product, agricultural product. I wanted to make something with those apples, which is what led me to cider. And at that point, which was the mid 1990s, mid to late 1990s, the Virginia wine industry was beginning to gain some acclaim and have a pretty serious wine program with support from Virginia Tech and also from the Department of Agriculture, the State Department of Agriculture. And I thought this is something I could do. I could join the wine industry, but not make wine, but grow apples and make hard cider.
WMRA
And prior to that, you were in banking, though, right?
Diane Flynt
I was. I was. I had a had a long career with a large regional bank that eventually became Bank of America. I then joined a bank consulting firm and travel for a living, which is what gave me the flexibility to learn how to make cider, plant trees, grow those trees, and really prepare to found this business of Foggy Ridge Cider.
WMRA
How did you go about learning to make cider?
Diane Flynt
You know, learning is my highest value, and I hope I never stop learning. I try to learn every single day. I just dug in growing up, going to a farm every weekend, and being a lifetime gardener. I felt like I had a lot of the horticultural side down pat, and then I also took a lot of courses, sensory courses, developing my palate, understanding the chemistry of fermentation. I took courses at Virginia Tech, and then the consulting firm I was working for was headquartered in San Francisco. So I had the ability to take some really top-notch courses in at the Wine Lab and other really great training centers in California.
WMRA
Really incredible to go from banking to that. I mean, what a gutsy thing to do in life. How how difficult was that? Were you nervous?
Diane Flynt
Well, I have Chris. I have a. I'm looking at a sticky note on my computer monitor that says discomfort is the price of a meaningful life, and you know that has guided me. And I'm a creator, not so much a maintainer. I like to learn, and I'm. I guess I'm not afraid. Of course, I had fearful moments, and I certainly write about that in my book, of you know the anxiety of putting a lot of energy and No one knew what hard cider was in this region, and we were the first cidery, commercial cidery, south of Massachusetts in the 20th century.
WMRA
So you stopped making cider, but you're still growing apples.
Diane Flynt
Absolutely, my apples will likely outlive me, and I hope people are doing things for a very long time.
WMRA
So, what does that mean for you then, as an apple farmer during this time of year? I mean, how many varieties do you grow? How many trees do you have? Like, tell me what your orchard looks like.
Diane Flynt
Yeah, we've got three small orchards that are fenced, about 1000 trees total. So, have what most consumers would see as a traditional orchard.
You spent years documenting Southern Apple history.
WMRA
How would you describe the Shenandoah Valley's place in that story?
Diane Flynt
Quite significant, long and storied part of the Southern Apple story. And one of the things that really surprised me when I began researching this book in around 2020 was you know I thought I knew a lot about apples in the South. I've been growing them for for a dozen years at that point, but I was surprised. I learned something unexpected at every turn. One thing I learned is apples in the South, which today we associate with the Mountain South, they once grew in the 19th century, all over the South, from you know Mobile, Alabama, Mississippi, you know of course Richmond, Virginia had one of the first fruit tree nurseries. Apples were grown in much more varied locations in the South, and many more varieties than I ever thought you'd see in the South, Lee Calhoun, the author Lee Calhoun, who wrote the Encyclopedia of Old Southern Apples that has that name, Lee documented about 2000 apple varieties that either originated in the South or were widely grown there, and you see many of those in the Shenandoah.
WMRA
2000.
Diane Flynt
That's right. That was a surprise to me too.
WMRA
I just have blow my mind. Even when I hear about how many potatoes there are, I still can't wear my head around how there are 2000 different apples. There's probably way more than that if you go worldwide.
Diane Flynt
Absolutely. Well, you know, I'll have to talk a little bit about sex because the reason there are so many apples. Has to do with apple reproduction. Apples are heterozygous, which means they reproduce sexually. And of course, the offspring of an apple tree is not the apple; it's the seeds. And picture an apple tree full of apples. Let's say it's Granny Smith. Each seed is an entirely new apple to the world, just like each human child is an entirely new set of DNA. So, and there's one extra factoid about that: apples are what are called extremely heterozygous. So, you know, a human offspring often resembles one or both parents, but if you plant nine Granny Smith apple seeds, you'll get nine trees, and they will bear apples that probably look nothing like that Granny Smith, they might be little and brown or big and red, and they probably won't taste very good. And those apples are called seedlings, and that's what apple reproduction is-to replicate an apple to get more of that Granny Smith. The DNA of the fruit, the palm, the fruit, p o m m e, resides in the wood of the tree. So you have to graft every single named apple is connected to a person, Chris. Some person. I mean, let's take Grimes Golden, which is an old Southern apple that was discovered in West Virginia, kind of over there near Bath County, you know, somewhat near the Shenandoah. He discovered it growing in a trash heap on his farm. It had fruit every year, and it wasn't you know, damaged by disease or freeze, and he started sharing it locally. He called it Grimes Golden, and it became so popular. Nurseries picked it up, and then it became one of the most widely planted apples in the South.
WMRA
So, is there a Diane Flint apple?
Diane Flynt
We do have a lot of seedlings on our farm, but none of them taste very good, so I haven't replicated any of them.
WMRA
Well, if you could make the perfect apple, that would be the Diane Flint apple. What would it taste like?
Diane Flynt
Oh, it would be very tart. It would be very tart. I like a really acidic apple and one that's very highly flavored.
WMRA
When we're talking about preserving apple varieties, I have to think that these family farms are the ones that are keeping this going.
Diane Flynt
Well, many are. You also see it with a lot of the cider makers around. I'm thinking of growers like Troddenvale Cider over in Warm Springs and Almall Cider Works outside of Charlottesville. There's so many to name who both make cider and grow apples.
WMRA
You have a quote on your website from someone that said, "You treat your trees like your children. It was something like that. What does that mean?
Diane Flynt
I think the quote is, "I treat my trees as individuals. Yeah,and I think any gardener would understand that because you know farming is all about noticing, and that's really it. It's treating your trees as individuals with needs and making sure those needs are met.
WMRA
Diane Flint is an apple expert and former cider maker, an apple farmer. Her book is called "Wild Tamed Lost: Revised: The Surprising Story of Apples in the South, Diane. Thank you so much for sharing your love of apples with us today.
Diane Flynt
You're welcome. It's great to talk to you, Chris.
