Ashley Thomas (far right) leads a team of volunteers for the Boomington Community Orchard on the first phase of planting the nut tree grove near the YMCA in Bloomington, Indiana (courtesy of Bloomington Community Orchard, April, 2018)
Here in Bloomington Indiana, we are lucky to have a community orchard. The Bloomington Community Orchard is an organization that maintains fruit-bearing trees and bushes on a plot of land next to a city park in Bloomington. The trees are planted and cared for by volunteers, and the fruit is freely available to anyone. The orchard is also involved in education programs, community plantings and fruit tree give-aways.
Last year they partnered with the City of Bloomington to plant a nut tree grove on a piece of land between the YMCA and the Winslow little league baseball fields, just a stone's throw away from the orchard’s main site. It’s a grassy gentle slope just off of a jogging path, and in view of an up-scale subdivision to the East. They planted the grove in stages, with the third and final planting during Memorial Day, weekend, a couple of weeks ago. Earth Eats was onsite for the first planting session on Earth Day, in 2018. Visit the Bloomington Community Orchard website to learn how to get involved.
Listen to this story on this episode of Earth Eats.
Note: this story originally aired June 7, 2019
