Tool Sharpening, Mulch Circles and Shade Gardening at Ben Nobleman Orchard

The Ben Nobleman Park Volunteers clean and sharpen the park’s hand pruners, loppers and pole pruners.

The growing season is coming to an end and it’s time to clean and sharpen our tools so that they’re ready to use in 2023! So, this week, the Ben Nobleman Park crew gathered for an informal tool sharpening workshop.

Maintaining your tools correctly is essential if you want to keep your trees and plants healthy. Dull and dirty tools will crush rather than cut branches and those messy pruning cuts can become an entry point for pests and diseases.

The team sharpening and oiling the tools from our orchard shed.

Susan led the workshop and brought along a variety of sharpening tools including Corona carbide sharpeners, and a Felco Diamond sharpener Then we used mineral oil and WD40 to prevent rust and help the tool gear mechanisms work smoothly .

One of our newest (and youngest!) volunteers waters the snapdragons and blanketflower in the pollinator garden!

Attendees this week included Susan, Giselle, Zeny, Brian, Andy, Olivia, Annie, Rebecca, Ellie and our teenage volunteer.

We also had two newbies helping us in the park today – two-year-old “K” and her mum who meticulously watered the new plantings in the pollinator garden.

Little K accidentally watered herself once or twice but didn’t seem too concerned. She did lots of work and didn’t get tired at all!

Brian, Leah, Zeny and Annie create a mulch circle around an Eastern Redbud tree in the park. Photo credit: OrchardPeople.com.

There were lots of other jobs to do this week.

  • Brian, Leah, Zeny and Annie worked on weeding around two of the orchard trees.
  • Andy’s job was to take care of some of our pruning special projects.
  • Olivia fed the trees with a molasses mixture.
  • Annie, Rebecca and Ellie finished removing suckers from the shade garden.
  • And our teenage volunteer and Ellie cleared up the weed trees along the southern fence of the park.
Our teenage volunteer worked with 7-year old Ellie (who vanished to the playground at this point) to remove the weed trees along the fence.

All in all it was a successful day! Though we worry about Brian whose orchard adventures left him flaked out on the ground in exhaustion as you can see in the photo below. But never fear! Another week or two working alongside our hardworking crew and Brian might just be able to keep up! 😉

A successful day in Ben Nobleman Park!

Next week, we will gather on Saturday for some more fun and good hard work. And as the last “official” stewardship day of the season, we’ll end our session with bagels and a pot luck! We will also invite some special guests to the park to join us. You’ll hear more about that in the next blog post!

PS. The last official stewardship day doesn’t mean we won’t meet again this fall. We will organize a few more special events once the weather gets a bit cooler.

Susan Poizner is one of the volunteers for The Ben Nobleman Park Community Orchard in Toronto. She is the creator of the fruit tree care education website OrchardPeople.com.  Susan is the author of four fruit tree care books including Grow Fruit Trees Fast: A Beginner’s Guide to a Healthy Harvest in Record Time. She is also the host of the Orchard People podcast and an ISA Certified Arborist.