It’s not every day that you can harvest the fruits of your labour. Especially when you’re a volunteer in Ben Nobleman Park Community Orchard! As a group we’re still brainstorming about what type of signage to have in our park sharing our harvest policy with the public. If we can sum it up in a few words it is:

“If you see something ripe, pick one or two. Leave the rest for someone else.”

Now we did have a fabulous cherry harvest this year which we enjoyed and shared with our community. The apples? Well, they were harvested by someone else who came and filled two bags of unripe apples for some unknown reason. So we didn’t get to taste them this year.

Ah, but our Asian pear tree! This young tree had a good number of beautiful and perfect pears for us to enjoy and today was the day. And the consensus was that these juicy babies tasted FANTASTIC! Asian pears are also called “Apple Pears” because they are apple shaped…but they have that beautiful pear taste.

Thumbs up for our Asian pears! The volunteers of the Ben Nobleman Park Community Orchard do an Asian pear tasting and picnic to celebrate harvest day.

Now the day wasn’t just fun and games. There was work to do. Giselle, Ruth, Susan, Lynn and Marilyn worked in the pollinator garden which looked magical on this cool, overcast day. The yellow Black Eyed Susans were set amongst the blue grey of sage, thyme and other herbs. It was lovely.

The pollinator Garden looked great with the Black Eyed Susans, Sage, and Autumn Joy Sedums.

Ruth shows off the pollinator garden in Ben Nobleman Park.

Sadly, Cliff and Alex took the job of taking down a beloved but very diseased apple tree. In 2016 a wound appeared on its trunk and it turned black. In 2017, two of the lower branches died. This year two more branches died as the disease (probably bacterial or fungal) started working its way up the trunk of the tree. Inside the trunk, the wood was rotten and infected and our goal was to prevent this disease from spreading to other nearby fruit trees.

The trunk of the diseased apple tree that had to come down. You can see the infected and rotten areas of the wood.

My mother once told me that when she was young, her mother always believed that a sad event should be followed by a happy one. So if the family had to go to a funeral, for instance, they would go out afterwards to enjoy an ice cream. My grandma’s philosophy was that life has its ups and downs and it’s important to make time for the “ups”.

So while we did what we had to do in taking down the tree, I’m so happy that we followed that up with a harvest picnic. We’ll remember that tree fondly! And now it’s time to celebrate the many beautiful fruit trees that we still have and enjoy – and time to work out what fruit tree will replace our dearly departed apple tree.

Susan Poizner is the coordinator of The Ben Nobleman Park Community Orchard. She is the creator of the fruit tree care training website www.orchardpeople.com and the author of the award-winning fruit tree care book Growing Urban Orchards. Susan is also the host of The Urban Forestry Radio Show and Podcast, an hour-long show that explores fruit trees, food forests, permaculture and arboriculture.