Hip hip hooray for Apple Day! 🍎

By Isabella Falsetti

Thank you to everyone who joined us for Apple Day on Sunday! This was our first Apple Day since 2019, and we had an amazing turnout. It was wonderful to celebrate the apple harvest with the community on such a beautiful fall day. In total, we raised $632 to support the recovery of LMNHS. A huge thank you to everyone who donated, volunteered, and came out to show their support. 🍎🫢🏼

We had 10 different varieties of apples available for sampling: from Honeycrisp to Granny Smith to Red Delicious.

Volunteers preparing slices at the apple sampling station

We also had a cider-making assembly line, with volunteers crushing up apples on one end and pressing them into juice on the other. At the end of the day, we had plenty of bottles of fresh cider for everyone to take home.

At our apple dehydration station, Art Bomke talked about fruit-drying process, with apples courtesy of the Vancouver Fruit Tree Project.

Volunteers prepping apples for cider-making.

At the middle of the day, we had a lovely apple potluck lunch with homemade dishes provided by community members. There were also delicious homemade apples treats for sale, courtesy of the amazing Cat Poppins.

We had a spectacular day and can’t wait for next year.

A field trip to Strathcona Community Garden

Angela and Joanne visited Strathcona Community Garden to view their apple pressing process and composting area. This 3-acre garden was transformed from the False Creek mudflats and city garbage dump into a flourishing community garden that has served as the model for a city-wide community gardening program.
The Garden includes a heritage apple orchard with over 600 espaliered trees, a herb garden for the use of local residents along with bee keeping, composting programs, and an acre set aside for wildlife. 
This blog has highlights of the trip for general garden, composting and apple pressing.  
Be sure to sign up for the Composting Workshop September 17th with Angela Hoy and Save the Date for the return of our Apple Day on October 1st.

The Garden

Pictured below from left to right: the mature espaliered orchard with many dozens of trees; the wisteria walkway which must be a delight in the Spring making a return visit for sure; their ample greenhouse; and solar panels on a shed roof (we do plan to add another solar panel to our shed).

The Composting System

We also visited the composting area where we found Carla Frankel and several other volunteers hard at work chopping, sifting and barrowing in contributions to the massive pile of material to be processed. Pictured below: The β€œAdvice” Board; There are 9 bins which are emptied in rotation. A new one is being started to the left of the β€œAdvice” picture; Carla and Angela - Blackcurrant prunings root very easily, and Angela took the opportunity whilst at Strathcona to rescue some and take them home for planting and, if successful, to move them to RPCG to join the Berry Patch;  Sifting finished compost. The sieve doubles as a front for the bay when not in use. We also saw the pile of mature horse manure from Southlands Farm for kick starting the compost! 

Apple Pressing 

 In preparation for our RPCG Apple Day, October 1st, we wanted to see the process at Strathcona Community Garden.  We are pleased that we may borrow the mulcher – 1st pass on the apples – that you see below in the two pictures on the left. The equipment for the 2nd step we are looking to the Tool Library to source. The equipment at Strathcona shown on the right below is not very portable for us to use.