Fruit trees are so generous. Each year they offer us a delicious harvest of organic fruit. Our fruit trees feed us…. but how do we feed them in return?

Each year, the Ben Nobleman Park Community Orchard team uses our fundraising money to buy 3 cubic yards of compost to feed our fruit trees and pollinator garden plants. We feed the plants early in the season by mulching or topdressing with the compost to ensure that these plants have the energy to stay healthy and productive.

Wheeling 3 cubic yards of compost around our park to distribute it to the plants takes muscle! So the team came out in full force and included: Susan, Gail, Leah, Rael, Cliff, Olivia, Andy, Dan & Dan, Tess, Zeny, Annie, Janina, Reenie and our teenage volunteer.

But the question is…how far can you spread three cubic yards of compost?

Well, the team used two wheelbarrows to distribute the mulch to many of our fruit and nut trees and to our pollinator garden. But after two hours the compost pile was gone, and we still hadn’t mulched three of our cherry trees and two apple trees.

Once, 3 cubic yards of compost was enough for our fruit trees and garden. But now that our trees are larger, we now realize we need four or five cubic yards to ensure that the plants and trees have enough nourishment for the season. So we’re checking to see if we can afford to bring in another cubic yard or two of mulch to use next week and finish the job.

While mulching was our main activity, we did do other orchard work as well and we finally put up our harvest policy poster in our bulletin board. We have been having challenges communicating our harvest policy so Leah created a sign that explains the park’s harvest rules. This is what it says:

This orchard is for everyone’s enjoyment. So please take note of our harvest policy: 

• Do not harvest unripe fruit
• If the fruit is ripe, gently harvest only what you can eat while in the orchard. 
• If you would like to take fruit home, sign up for a community harvest day.
• To be notified about community harvest days, join our email list by emailing growingforgreen@gmail.com.

Finally, this weekend, we wrapped up our stewardship day by tasting some of the harvest. We discovered that the tart cherries on our Romeo sour cherry shrub do sweeten up if they are allowed to ripen a bit longer. And we tasted some of our “almost ripe” plums. They would benefit from another week or two of sunshine. We hope the community will allow the fruit to ripen fully and when the fruit is ripe, that community members will take only what they can eat in the park (See above harvest policy).

Thanks for coming out everyone! And if you are reading this post and are interested in becoming a volunteer – or if you want to be notified about upcoming park events and community harvest days – send an email to growingforgreen (at) gmail.com.

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.