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!