This week, 10 volunteers from the neighbourhood and beyond gathered in Ben Nobleman Park Community Orchard for a stewardship day. We weeded and raked the pollinator garden and put sheep manure on our 14 fruit trees, four serviceberries and two shagbark hickory trees. We bought the manure from PlantWorld on Eglinton Ave. W. using our Fiskars Project Orange Grant gift certificate. Thanks again Fiskars!

Why are we fertilizing? In our fruit tree pruning workshop on April 10, we learned that often fruit trees need a nutritional boost in early spring before the warmer growing season begins. The trees that need this the most are the ones that had little to no growth in the last year. But applying manure is just one way for us to improve the soil for our trees. We will learn other techniques at our workshop on Soil, Fertility and Fruit Trees on May 15, 2011 at 10 a.m., with fruit tree expert Norm Herbert.

If you’d like to join us for the workshop, there are a few remaining spots left but they are going fast, so hurry and e-mail growingforgreen@gmail.com and get your name on the list. And when you’re in the park, come and enjoy our pollinator garden, which has sprung to life with two different types of daffodils and dozens of emerging perennials. Soon the bed will give us great show of colour – it’s a huge contrast to how the bed looked last year when it was overgrown with quack grass and thistle. It just goes to show what a difference 200 volunteer hours can make!

For more pictures of the day visit our Flickr page! And if you’d like to help us on stewardship days, send an email to growingforgreen@gmail.com and we’ll keep you posted as to when they are!