Volunteers of the Ben Nobleman Park Community Orchard show off their bouquets of sage!

The weather continues to get cooler but the gardening season continues. And this weekend the volunteers of the Ben Nobleman Park Community Orchard buzzed like bees in the pollinator garden. But instead of collecting pollen, we were pulling out the weeds that have popped up during the recent long awaited rainy days.

Common Mallow (drooping, on the right) was one of the weeds of the day during this month’s stewardship session.

And so we spent the cool bright morning working in the garden pulling out weedy interlopers – and learning their names. The weed of the day was “Common Mallow” which has geranium like leaves. It’s a plant reported online to be edible…but not to actually taste very good.

Audrey and Sherry talk weeds in the garden.

This weekend was also a sage-pruning weekend and so each volunteer went home with a bouquet of sage to dry and use for smudging or in Thanksgiving turkey recipes.

Lindsay brings her daughter Azalia to supervise the volunteers in the pollinator garden.

Our official supervisor, you Azalia, did a great job in overseeing the work with the help of her mom, Lindsay. We all left the garden looking beautiful (actually, the garden looked beautiful – the volunteers looked tired and happy), and we look forward to our next stewardship day adventure as we continue to care for our pollinator garden and our beautiful fruit trees.

Can you support us in caring for our park and orchard? Become a volunteer by emailing us at growingforgreen (at) gmail.com or donate to our fundraising campaign.

Susan Poizner is the coordinator of the Ben Nobleman Park Community Orchard. She is also the author of the award-winning fruit tree care book “Growing Urban Orchards” and the creator of the award-winning online fruit tree care training course at www.orchardpeople.com.