Mt. Joy Orchard

This Sunday, October 26th we gather at 1pm to put the orchard to bed for the winter and celebrate the life of Ben Cooke. Ben was a regular Mt. Joy volunteer who died unexpectedly this summer. He showed up early, stayed late and worked hard. He enjoyed learning about orchard care, but like so many people who keep coming back to Mt. Joy, the most important aspect was the community. Ben was a kind, gentle person who was a joy to hang out with while pulling weeds or picking up drops. He will be missed by many at Mt. Joy and in the wider community. We will share memories of Ben, protect trees for winter and plant a memorial tree in Ben’s honor. Organized in collaboration with Ben’s Permaculture Design Certificate class cohort.

Thanks to everyone who came out on this misty Sunday morning to plant over 400 wild blueberry plants at Mt. Joy Orchard! Also thanks to for providing the plants, wood chips and other materials to make this happen. Not only did we get the plants in the ground, but watered in and mulched around the edges. Our next event is Thursday (May 23) at 4pm when we will wrap up loose ends with the blueberries and work on regular orchard maintenance. We hope to see you there!

We are EXTREMELY excited to be introducing low bush blueberries to Mount Joy this year. Our plan was to plant them all on our next scheduled workday, on May 24th, but fate has intervened and now we need to put them in the ground THIS SUNDAY MAY 19th.

We will be there at 9:00am on Sunday, and it will take most of the day to get this done. Please come and help! Come for one hour, or four hours or whatever you can.

We had so much fun on Saturday, that we are adding 2 more pruning events this spring. Both are free and open to the public. One is our first ever collaboration with our friends at the Boyd St Community Garden! Please dress for the weather and bring any pruning tools you have (some tools will be available to borrow if you don’t have your own).
March 9th 1:00pm - Renovating old fruit trees at Boyd St. Community Garden - While the principals of pruning older/ overgrown fruit trees are similar to young trees, there are some details and techniques that are especially suited to old trees. We will be helping out our friends at Boyd St. Community Garden get some large fruit trees back into shape and you are invited to come learn and help. The garden is at 2 Boyd St., Portland, ME.
March 23rd 1:00pm - Mt. Joy Pruning round 2. We had a great pruning workshop on Feb 24th, but we didn’t quite get the job finished. So we will have a second session. We’ll have an optional pruning workshop for folks who aren’t familiar with pruning.