It’s been exactly ten years since the volunteers of the Ben Nobleman Park Community Orchard planted their first fruit trees. Back in 2009, this was a pilot project. We were planting the first community orchard in a public park in Toronto. And if our project was a success, other communities would be able to follow suit by planting fruit trees in their local parks. Our trees have grown and blossomed and our orchard is thriving…but amazingly, it’s taken us 10 years to create signage for the orchard! This past weekend, we finally unveiled new educational signage for our orchard and we’re so pleased!

The signage was sorely needed. Amazingly, while our orchard has been growing in he park for a decade, there are still many people – even those who live in our local community – that don’t know that we have a community orchard in our local park. And now our goal is to ensure that everyone knows and that everyone can participate in volunteering, harvest days and community celebrations. And so we applied for a grant from The Canadian Tree Fund to invest in signage that would explain what our project is about and how people can get involved.

A committee including Gail, Marilyn, Susan and Lynn worked to create the content of the signage. And then graphic designer Audrey Nair of RedAnt Design (a former orchard volunteer!) created the design. Paul Orichefsky, our Park Supervisor, had his team oversee the installation of the new signage.

The agreement was that our information would go into a large bulletin board so that the content can change over the years as the orchard grows and develops.

We were excited to unveil the signage during our anniversary celebration. Here is what it looks like close up:

We are so grateful to both The Canadian Tree Fund and to Park Supervisor Paul Orichefsky of Toronto’s Parks, Forestry and Recreation for his team’s help in installing the new signage! And it’s not yet finished! The next step is to put a small roof on the board to protect the contents from moisture and sun damage.

Susan Poizner is the coordinator of The Ben Nobleman Park Community Orchard in Toronto and the author of the award-winning fruit tree care book Growing Urban Orchards. Susan teaches fruit tree care skills online at he fruit tree care training website OrchardPeople.com. Susan is also the host of The Urban Forestry Radio Show and Podcast, a show that explores topics relating to fruit trees, food forests, permaculture and arboriculture. She is also an ISA Certified arborist.