Category Archives: Stewardship

From Wharf to Table

Alas, this is a special day. Our long awaited Harvest Table has arrived in the park. There is a story, of course that goes with this table. The heritage wood was part of Toronto’s original docks – some of them built as early as the 1830s. In the 1880s, the docks were covered with landfill so that the city could expand southwards and new docks were built further south.  A century later, developers excavated the land to build new condos and found the original docks perfectly preserved. The wood was salvaged and we were lucky enough to acquire some of it from the wonderful Lambos of Canadian Salvaged Timber Corporation in Toronto. The rough design for the table was done by landscape architect Jane Hutton and OCAD graduate Casey Wong built the table with the help of Mark Wilson of Metal Art Studio. As you may have noticed in a previous blog, landscape architect Sander Freedman of Sander Design integrated our lovely tabletop into the urban forest booth of the Green Living Show where it made it’s grand debut. So what’s next for this lovely table?

Well, we’ve got some temporary benches from the Green Living show that we’ll be using with it for a while and we’re raising money to make some matching benches that go with the table. Soon Parks and Rec will put the table and the benches on concrete footing. Ultimately, it will seat up to 20 people and will be a place for orchard picnics, pruning workshop, fruit sorting, chatting, relaxing, having fun and other stuff.  The wood is old pine, so each spring our volunteers will go out and sand down the wood and prepare it for the year to come. We hope the table will be a place for us to play, learn and socialize together for many years to come!

Toronto's Original Docklands...covered by landfill for over a century

Uncovering Toronto's Historic Docks

Orchard Harvest Table in Park

Thank you Fiskars!

It may be early May, but as far as we’re concerned, Christmas has arrived in the Ben Nobleman Community Orchard. Earlier this year we applied for a Project Orange Thumb Grant with the garden tool company Fiskars. Well, recently we discovered that we were awarded the grant and as part of it we received a generous package of all the tools we’ll need to take care of our orchard and of the park’s perennial bed that we’ll be renovating this June. This week the irrigation committee met at the orchard shed and had a blast unwrapping the tools to see what we’ve got: garden shovels and forks for deep digging and weeding, secateurs and loppers for pruning and hand tools for planting and weeding. There are hard rakes and hoes and some fantastic collapsable baskets for collecting and transporting leaf waste and weeds . We’ve also got knee pads, herb scissors and a bunch of beautiful bright orange Fiskars t-shirts. We’re trying to figure out if there’s a way we can add our own Ben Nobleman Community Orchard Logo somehow. Anyways, it was an exciting day and we can’t wait to use these tools to dig in to the perennial bed on June 13 and 19th. More about that on our events page….Oh…and check out the Fiskars Project Orange Thumb web page. Sherry’s picture was one of the ones that’s featured on the front page!

Irrigation Committee Poses with new FIskars T-Shirts

The Toddler Irrigation Team

Tonight’s irrigation bee was quite lively, even though many of our regular volunteers couldn’t make it. Instead, we had a new team help us nurture our newly planted fruit trees. Kallie and Jack (together with Kallie’s mom, Rochelle) joined in the action with Kallie helping to irrigate the trees and Jack supervising. They had so much fun that Rochelle said she’d tell other parents to bring their kids to the park on Thursdays at 4.30 during our irrigation bees so the kids can help out and learn at the same time. Now, don’t think that Kallie and Jack are our youngest volunteers. Nine-month old Alice, accompanying her dad during an irrigation bee a few weeks ago, still has that honour. But then again, you never know who’s going to show up next week.

Kallie and Jack help water the fruit trees

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