Category Archives: Stewardship

All Hands on Deck!

Ben Nobleman Community Orchard volunteers gather for a day of scrubbing the harvest table, made from century old salvaged wood that was once part of Toronto’s first docklands.

It’s a piece of history. The harvest table in Ben Nobleman Park Community Orchard, is made out of salvaged wood that was part of Toronto’s first docklands in the early 1800s. By 1850, industrialization was in full force and the docklands and the area around them needed to be expanded. So developers dumped landfill on the old docks and expanded the lakeshore 900 meters to the south. Continue reading →

Park Tree Painting Party

Children under apricot tree canopy painting trunk

Lou, Janina and Liam painting an apricot tree in Ben Nobleman Park Community Orchard

Saturday June 9th was tree painting day. A team of energetic volunteers painted all of our lovely fruit trees to protect them from the sun, and prevent insects from climbing up to munch their juicy leaves. Two local children, Liam and Lou, frequent park visitors, but first-time painters, volunteered to help. After making a 1:1 mixture of water and white latex indoor paint (water-based), we started on the apricots. Keeping an eye out for any invasive gypsy moth caterpillars, we painted the trunks, making sure to cover all the cracks. Liam and Lou painted so well that I had to make sure my own painting was up to the same standards. Continue reading →

Orchard Shed Reno thanks to G&Z Volunteers

These days home and garden shows are very popular – especially when a messy, disorganized and dirty house is magically transformed into a clean and fabulous show home. Well, now the volunteers of the Ben Nobleman Park Community Orchard in Toronto will know what that feels like first hand. That’s because two of our volunteers are contractors who paint and renovate local homes and they volunteered to help us organize our shed by drilling hooks and tool holders into the heavy concrete walls. Continue reading →