Toronto City Councillor Joe Mihevc helps the volunteers of the Ben Nobleman Park Community Orchard amend the soil around the parks’s fruit trees.

It’s late spring and the time to amend the soil is now, as our fruit trees need a boost of energy to grow well and produce a wonderful harvest for us during the growing season. And who better to mulch with than our fantastic city councillor, Joe Mihevc?

Earlier in the season, we called City of Toronto Parks Forestry and Recreation to find out if they could deliver some compost to Ben Nobleman Park for our fruit trees. We discovered that they no longer drop off compost to community groups for park use.

When Joe heard that we needed compost and a way to get it to our park,  he hooked a trailer onto his car and helped us fill it up at one of the Free Compost Days in our community. Then he helped the Ben Nobleman Park Community Orchard volunteers spread it around our beautiful fruit trees. Now that’s a city councillor who doesn’t mind getting his hands dirty!

So what is the difference between mulching and amending the soil? Why is it so important to do these things in the spring? And why do fruit trees often need organic nitrogen supplements at this time of year?

Find out by ordering a copy of Susan Poizner’s new book  Growing Urban Orchards.  Susan is the founder and coordinator of the Ben Nobleman Park Community Orchard and Director of fruit tree consulting company Orchard People and it looks like the judges at the Garden Writers Association Media Awards liked her book…they gave it a Silver Award of Achievement (Category Book: General Readership)! Read more about that here.

Joe Mihevc, Cliff Changoor (with his great Tree Hugger T-Shirt) and Susan Poizner, one of the founders of the Ben Nobleman Park Community Orchard

Susan Poizner and Cliff Changoor shovel compost for use in amending the soil around the fruit trees in Ben Nobleman Park Community Orchard