It’s April 9th and today was the first Ben Nobleman Park Community Orchard stewardship day for 2022. It’s a little early and a little muddy in the park, so today we cleaned up a winter’s worth of litter.

We also took the time to celebrate since our team was recently nominated for a community hero award! Our provincial MPP Jill Andrew asked members of the community to nominate individuals and groups who make this community a better place and we were glad to be included!

The person who nominated our group had attended last year’s virtual apple tasting fundraiser and they said that the nomination was for “…collecting apples from the trees in the park at Eglinton and the Allen. We bought a bagful that were labelled and then there was a Zoom meeting in which each apple was identified by its coloured dot. The flavour of each was discussed and we all tasted them simultaneously on zoom. It’s a cool idea, was great fun, and also raised money for the park, which I had not known existed til this event.”

We were also celebrating the launch of Susan’s new fruit tree care book Grow Fruit Trees Fast: A Beginner’s Guide to a Healthy Harvest in Record Time. In the book, Susan tells stories from Ben Nobleman Park and shares key fruit tree care lessons she has learned over the years.

Our next stewardship day is after Easter and the Passover holiday. So we will next meet on April 24th. If you want to join us then, send an email to growingforgreen (at) gmail.com and we will send you the details!

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.