It’s been a wet May and our orchard stewardship days have been rained out quite a few times. But this past weekend, we had no choice! We had to cancel stewardship on Saturday due to rain, so we rescheduled for Sunday, knowing many of our regular volunteers might not be able to make it.

Why the urgency? Well, we had two huge bags of quality compost (2 cubic yards) to mulch our trees and pollinator garden ahead of our orchard’s tenth anniversary event on June 2, between 10 am and noon. We needed lots of hands to shovel the compost, wheel the wheelbarrows, and weed around the trees.

Who needs to watch wildlife documentaries…when nature is all around us. That’s the attitude of some local photographers who enjoy visiting the Ben Nobleman Park Community Orchard to take photos of this little but wonderful urban park.

One local photographer, Zahra Mennoune-Beghdali, enjoys wandering around the park and taking snapshots of nature’s beautiful show. After a long winter it’s a pleasure to see the bright colours of the daffodils and tulips and the breathtaking fruit tree blossoms.

It’s April 2019 and the volunteers of the Ben Nobleman Park Community Orchard were ready and raring to go after a long and mean winter of cold weather, icy sidewalks, and grey skies. And it was a beautiful day to get our park in order!