Tag Archives: Fruit Tree Care

Fruit Tree Care Practice For New Trainees

Susan Poizner, Director of OrchardPeople.com and Stacey Silvestri, a recent graduate in OrchardPeople.com's online Beginner Fruit Tree Care Training in Ben Nobleman Park.

Susan Poizner with Stacey Silvestri, a recent graduate in OrchardPeople.com’s online Beginner Fruit Tree Care Training in Ben Nobleman Park in Toronto, Ontario.

Springtime is the Time for Pruning

It’s springtime in Ben Nobleman Park and fruit tree care is our first priority. Our pollinator garden doesn’t need much care yet, but early spring is the pivotal time for dormant fruit tree pruning. At this time of year we shape our trees – our goal is to create a strong, fruit-supporting structure for our trees that will last for years to come. Continue reading →

Elmbank Students Visit Ben Nobleman Community Orchard

Posing in front of our orchard shed

Twenty seven teenage girls from Elmbank Middle School at Finch Avenue West at Martin Grove learned about making compost tea and apple sauce during an educational event in Ben Nobleman Park community orchard. The girls ate the apple sauce…but the compost tea was solely for the benefit of our 14 young fruit trees. Jane Hayes, of Garden Jane fame, taught the girls how to brush the leaves of our trees with compost tea to give them the nutrients they need and a extra bit of energy to help carry them through the winter. Continue reading →

The Happy Hoers (and mulchers)

The Mulching Team

Some folks pay $90 a month for a gym membership. Why waste the money when you can come to Ben Nobleman Park on a weekend morning and do some hoeing, mulching, weeding, weed bag shlepping, and other fitness activities?  Working in the orchard is great for core strength, muscle toning, cardio-fitness and other great stuff and it makes our little park look so much more beautiful. Or so says Sherry, our garden fitness trainer du jour!

After at least a month focusing on the pollinator garden, we now have some time to lavish attention on our fruit trees and the patch around the pears and plums was ripe for a serious weeding session. Instead of pulling the thistle this time, we took our Fiskar’s hoes and hoed them down making it quick and easy work and preventing the weeds from going to seed. We’ll need to do that on a regular basis. Our hope is at some point Parks and Rec will put sod down in that area, which will look great and make our work easier.

After hoeing, we used our remaining mulch, donated by Parks, Forestry and Recreation, to mulch around the fruit trees. The rings of mulch will help retain moisture around the roots of the trees and prevent weeds from popping up.

And in other news from Ben Nobleman Park: We now have evidence that pollinators have indeed found the pollinator bed. Butterflies and bees have already started fluttering around the new plants and they look happy indeed.

Pollinators have found the pollinator garden