Ben Nobleman Community Orchard volunteers gather for a day of scrubbing the harvest table, made from century old salvaged wood that was once part of Toronto’s first docklands.
It’s a piece of history. The harvest table in Ben Nobleman Park Community Orchard, is made out of salvaged wood that was part of Toronto’s first docklands in the early 1800s. By 1850, industrialization was in full force and the docklands and the area around them needed to be expanded. So developers dumped landfill on the old docks and expanded the lakeshore 900 meters to the south.
Over 100 years later, during excavations to build new high rise buildings, construction workers found the old docks. Salvage companies saved the wood and with the help of a grant from Live Green Toronto, we purchased this heirloom wood and turned it into a harvest table for our orchard park.
Over the years the table has been used for knitting workshops and fruit tree care workshops. It’s been enjoyed by park visitors who want to relax and read a book, and by others who have used it for children’s birthday parties, compost tea parties (don’t worry, we didn’t drink the compost tea), and tree painting parties. It’s so lovely to see that beautiful 200-year-old wood have a fantastic new purpose.
A friendly neighbourhood spider comes to join the volunteers on harvest table scrubbing day.
This weekend, our job was to scrub the wood down, get rid of the pollution and grime and expose the beautiful grain of the wood again. And we had all hands on deck! Volunteers included Susan, Lynn, Ruth, Giselle, Gail, Marilyn, Alex and Janina. And a new friend dropped into help. It was Spencer the Spider. He didn’t do much scrubbing but it was nice to have him visit.
The Volunteers of Ben Nobleman Park clean our beautiful harvest table made out of heirloom wood from Toronto’s first docklands.
Armed with scrub brushes, a scrubbing broom, and with buckets of soapy water, we went to work. Soon. the blackened table returned to it’s natural golden brown colour.
After scrubbing Marilyn and Lynn hose down the table to remove any remaining dirt while Susan, Ruth and Gail goof around taking selfies. You can see who does the work in this orchard!
It was a delightful day and also full of great ideas. We’re brainstorming as to how to raise money for our orchard needs next year. Perhaps we’ll have a blossom festival with some orchard tours? Maybe we can have a historian talk about the history of our table and docklands? And of course we’ll have a bake sale because everybody loves treats. We’ll develop these ideas in our November pot luck and meeting.
Our job next month will be winter mulching. Why don’t you join us? To get on our volunteer mailing list send an email to Lynn at growingforgreen (at) gmail.com. See you then!
See you then!
Susan Poizner is the coordinator of the Ben Nobleman Park Community Orchard. She’s the author of the award-winning fruit tree care book Growing Urban Orchards and the creator of the online fruit tree care training portal www.orchardpeople.com. She’s also the host of The Urban Forestry Radio Show and Podcast which covers fruit trees, food forests, permaculture and arboriculture.