Join the Edmonton Permaculture Guild and Operation Fruit Rescue Edmonton on Sunday, August 13th at 6pm at the orchard at McCauley School for our second annual potluck!
Apple Maggot Control Workshop
Did you know: Apple maggots are spreading like the plague in Edmonton? Apple maggots infect healthy apple trees with relative little external symptoms. Anxious apple lovers bite into their treasures to find tiny burrows and sometimes nests of maggots. Apple maggot infestations rarely clear up on their own and leave home owners and fruit pickers with hundreds of pounds of undesirable fruit each summer in Edmonton.
Apple Maggot Control Expert Advice
Join us at the OFRE Orchard at the McCauley School for an very informative session about the most prevalent pest that targets your apple trees. Learn from our resident apple maggot expert, Sarah, on how to take action to keep your apples and fruit healthy. And yes, you can still use apples that have been affected by apple maggots. We highly recommend making litres and litres of fresh apple cider with it! This workshop is ideal for our fruit growers, but is also open to fruit pickers to aid the sharing of knowledge on apple maggot spreading prevention.
Remember to dress for the weather. The event is rain or shine.
Please Note: Orchard policy will be in effect. Close toed shoes are mandatory when working in the orchard.
Please bring shovels, wheelbarrows and other gardening tools if you have them. OFRE only has a limited supply.
Register NOW on Eventbrite
Read more about this event on Facebook
Espalier Workshop at OFRE Orchard
Join us at the OFRE Orchard at McCauley on Saturday, June 17th at 9am with Dustin Bajer for an invaluable workshop on creating a strong and dynamic espalier system for your home and garden. This will be a hands on learning experience as we begin the construction of a fantastic espalier system at the OFRE Orchard at the old McCauley School.
What is an espalier system?
Dustin Bajer explains this ancient practice of training plants on his website.
Please Note: Due to the skill training nature of this event, we are restricting this opportunity to 15 Operation Fruit Rescue Edmonton members. Don’t delay, register today!
Remember to dress for the weather. The event is rain or shine. Orchard policy will be in effect. Close toed shoes are mandatory when working in the orchard.
Please bring shovels, wheelbarrows and other gardening tools if you have them. OFRE only has a limited supply.
Register NOW on Eventbrite
Read more about this event on Facebook
OFRE Southside Rhubarb Bike Run
First picking event of the year. Come join us! 10 spaces offered. Free & Family friendly!
Ride will be led by Bonnie Patterson-Payne, OFRE member
Saturday June 10, 2017
1 pm until 4 pm(ish)
Event starting location:
King Edward Park Community
7708-85 St NW
Edmonton, AB T6C 4K9
Meet at the parking lot next to the park!
Ride to 5 houses picking rhubarb in Avonmore, Hazel Dean and Argyll and King Edward Park districts. Rhubarb will be divided between pickers, home owners and charity. Donations will go to YESS on Whyte Avenue.
Bike and helmet required and a backpack/bike bags or trailer to carry rhubarb.
Dress for the weather.
Weather permitting (heavy rain and thunderstorms may cause a postponement of meet to Sunday June 11 at same location and time). Volunteers will be notified Saturday morning!
Register NOW! (2 spaces are available):
We encourage you to sign up as on OFRE member which allows you to come to all our other fruit picks of the summer.
Home is the Micro-Orchard
OFRE values the importance of togetherness; a vibrant community strengthens all of us. For OFRE, community is defined as “a group of people living in the same place or having a characteristic in common,” or “a feeling of fellowship with others established by shared beliefs, interests and goals.” We connect with the community through events, and we interact with people who share the same interests as we do.
The micro-orchard we designed and installed at McCauley School is home to OFRE and its community. It will always be a guiding light to our mission, vision, and values. We take great pride in our space for it is a place to gather, congregate, and share. We are grateful for those talented artists who have generously donated their time and expertise in the effort to better this organization. As our connections are solidified, OFRE becomes more resilient to unexpected crisis and challenging alteration.
Excellence in Illustration and Design
We especially would like to thank, Jill Stanton, one of Edmonton’s leading illustrators who created our logo, and the high standard of excellence rendered in her work exhorted us to thrive as a new organization. We also would like to show gratitude to Justine Ma who contributed her talent for graphic design to the table we have in the orchard. The table required several days to optimum temperature without rain so the graphics could be painted, and a clear resin could be applied over the artwork.
We were honored to have Stephen Yettaw, an international stone sculptor, enthusiastically take on the project of carving our feature entry sign. The stone weighed over 3,000 pounds, and had been carved into a solid red granite. It took Stephen over a week of solid carving and cutting to carve our logo out into red granite and carve the text. Like how he had made all his sculptures, our stone was also carved at his mother’s fruit orchard — Flying Rabbit Fruit Farm in St. Paul.
Helpful Hauling
We also appreciate the help from Lee Grant, the owner of Fat Fred Hauling Co who not only picked up the rock but also drove our volunteers and our orchard manager Mike Johnson to meet with Stephen. Moments like that makes us realize that many people are great, caring, and loving; the community flourishes because of them.
Our orchard still needs improvement, and we look forward to collaborating with bicycle commuters to design and build new bike racks for the orchard. We expect something amazing to take place in January for the man behind the pedal powered apple crusher has agreed to work with us again! We also have benches to fabricate out of offcut glulam beams donated by Western Archrib, an Edmonton-based company.
Thank-you to All Our Volunteers
As we wind down for the season, we want to thank all our volunteers for their efforts in growing fruit, picking fruit, sharing fruit, and working as active members of the board. We are so grateful for your energy and enthusiasm. We will keep you posted on events for next season.
Step by step, we continue to build our community and share our stories to inspire you to find the fruit hidden in our city.