Eliza Greenman, Millennial Orchardist

Meet a Millennial working to save the past for the future.

Reader Contribution by Andrew Weidman
Published on January 21, 2016
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Unsplash/Liana Mikah

The world we live in is vastly different from the one that most of us grew up in. It’s faster, more connected, and ultimately in danger of losing incredible amounts of information and ability. That last sentence seems at odds with the potential of the internet, a vast library virtually spanning the globe, bringing nearly every book, every article, every paper and message board written to your fingertips with just a few keystrokes, but it’s true. How much skill, how much information, how much ability is written not in ink but in ability, stored not in bookshelves or digital files, but in muscle memory and practice? How much is in danger of being lost as Time and the Grave claim our oldest and richest repositories of the Library of Experience?

woman with long brown hair wearing blue shirt

Enter Eliza Greenman. I had the good fortune and extreme pleasure to hear her speak a few weeks ago, when she spent the day with the Backyard Fruit Growers in Lancaster PA. Who are the Backyard Fruit Growers? Well, they’re people who grow fruit in their backyards. They share skills and tips, scion wood for grafting and cuttings for rooting, seeds and ideas. In short, they maintain a Library of Experience of their own, sharing and conserving information on a subject they are passionate about: growing good, healthy fruit and preserving rare and antique varieties of fruit.

Back to Ms. Greenman. She refers to herself as a ‘perennial millennial,’ and has decided to return to the land, two generations after her family left it. She recalls her mother coming home from work, rubbing tired feet and complaining about how much they hurt, a memory that led her to decide she’d never follow a career that required that kind of footwear. Forestry requires a very different kind of gear, and for that reason, among others, she chose to become a forester.

Working in a ‘white, older male dominated profession’ and lacking a desire to make paper, Eliza turned her attention to food producing trees. She found herself living on an island in Maine, surrounded by hundreds of neglected apple trees, and did what any sensible young person probably wouldn’t think of doing — she learned how to prune one.

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