Homegrown BC Apples, Cowichan Valley

Patsy and Bruce Tanner We have certified organic apples for sale in the Cowichan Valley on Vancouver Island.

Patsy and Bruce met at Olds Agricultural College, and have pursued their mutual passion ever since – that of working the land and growing agricultural crops.

We owned and operated Tanner's Orchard in Victoria from 1980–1994, where we grew 50 varieties of apples, pears, plums and quince. During this time, Bruce also worked as the Chief of Horticulture and the Butterfly Curator at the Crystal Garden Conservation Centre.

We moved to Cobble Hill in 1994 where we cleared and developed our beautiful five acres in the Kingburne Valley. Patsy operated Cobble Hill Organics, supplying certified organic vegetables to local restaurants, selling at farmers markets and raising our two sons. We have now come full circle and are again growing apples, following certified organic regulations. We are passionate about apple growing and sustainable agriculture.

We chose to grow Liberty Apples because they are a delicious eating and cooking apple. We also chose to grow Liberty Apples because of their natural disease and fungus resistance for diseases such as European Canker and Anthrose Canker, as well as fungus infestations such as Apple Scab. These are issues when growing apples on Vancouver Island.

In 1955 the New York State Agricultural Experiment Station developed the Liberty apple by crossing a Macoun apple with a crab apple (crab apples are highly disease resistant). After many years of testing, the Liberty apple was released in 1978. The Liberty apple was bred via natural selection rather than genetic modifications.

This fall (2018) will be our fourth harvest from our new orchard. We wholesale our fresh picked Liberty apples to quality Markets & Stores on Vancouver Island.