Not Far From The Tree

It's and the city is buzzing with climate ideas, solutions and actions. 🌎 🐝

Head to our website to check out our new blog from NFFTT community member, Rachel, who shares her perspectives on the connections between what we do here at Not Far From The Tree and the communities, biodiversity and systems at the heart of every day climate action. 🌱🍎

Many people see the beautiful, ripe fruit hanging from Toronto's trees, but they don’t always see what had to happen to get our volunteers there to pick it. 🌳

Before even the first cherry of the season is picked, our small but mighty staff team is working hard behind the scenes. This year, we’ve been busy setting up a smooth season by...
✨ Applying our community's feedback to the program's operations, the Fruit Picking Portal and our educational resources
✨ Boosting our Pick Leader onboarding to support our incredible community leaders
✨ Preparing 19 equipment sets so they're ready for fruit action!

Grant funding helps us with projects, but rarely covers the essential staff time keeping our project running, and we could really use your help to launch the 2026 season.

In order to continue rescuing and sharing as much nutritious local fruit as possible, our goal is to raise $10,000 before the end of July.

🍏 Find a link in our bio to help us bridge our funding gap!

Not Far From the Tree is hosting a FREE native tree giveaway on Saturday, June 6th from 8 am to 12 pm during Evergreen’s Saturday farmers’ market! 🌳

The Neighborhood Tree Giveaway Program supports the City of Toronto’s goal of reaching a 40% tree canopy cover by 2050. The City of Toronto provides all trees, which are native to Toronto’s seed zone and suited for our urban environment.

🪴 We are giving away Elderberry and Serviceberry. Each household may order a maximum of 2 trees. You can order 1 of each, or 2 of the same trees (if quantities allow).

You will receive your tree(s), an information sheet on your selected species, as well as a small paper bag of mulch to use after you plant it on your property. 🌲

Calling all fruit lovers and volunteers! If you want to spend some time under the fruit trees in Toronto's urban orchard this summer, this post is for you.

There are many ways to get involved with our Fruit Picking Program; the most straightforward are as a Fruit Picker, Pick Leader or Tree Registrant!

🍎 FRUIT PICKING is a great way to become acquainted with the city’s urban orchard, spend time outside in lush backyards, meet new people, and enjoy fresh, locally grown fruit in your own neighbourhood. It’s pretty dreamy!

🍒 If you enjoy facilitating groups of people, or offering leadership in community, the PICK LEADER role might be up your alley. Pick Leaders receive training to choose the time and date of the pick event, bring necessary picking equipment, teach volunteerrs how to pick fruit, and deliver donations to community agencies.

🌳 If you (or someone you know!) has a fruit tree with an over abundance of fruit - becoming a TREE REGISTRANT and sharing your bounty means that we can pick even more fruit, and share it with even more Torontonians who might not have equitable access to fresh produce.

To support the expenses of running as many pick events as we can every year, we invite our community to contribute annually to our project, helping us continue to share the fruits of our collective labour. The recommended shares are $40 for Tree Registrants and $10 for Fruit Pickers. We waive shares for anyone, no questions asked, and especially encourage Indigenous folks and Youth to utilize this option.

🌱 LEARN MORE & SIGN UP AT NOTFARFROMTHETREE.ORG!

Not Far From The Tree is hiring!

🍎 Join our team as a Program Coordinator for the 2026 Fruit Picking Program Season!

🍐 We are seeking someone who is thrilled at the prospect of spending their summer in the urban orchard. If you have a passion for community programming, urban agriculture and building relationships with people from all walks of life, we want to hear from you.

🍒 You'll work alongside the Program Manager to nurture and grow the Fruit Picking Program during the busy harvest months by providing operational support, guiding daily decision making and season planning to ensure smooth and successful program delivery.

Application Deadline: Wednesday, April 29, 2026
Start Date: May 11, 2026

🍇 Details and application process at notfarfromthetree.org

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A wheelie big thank you to for hooking us up with this bike trailer, re-tired from its past life as a pandemic lockdown cheese delivery chariot.

This summer, it begins its journey of helping us deliver fresh locally picked fruit to groups in Toronto tackling food insecurity!

Do you have an unused bike trailer that would like to gear up for fruit delivery? We’d love to get its wheels spinning. Get in touch!

Here in Toronto (zone 5 or 6 depending on your microclimate), spring runs from mid March to late May. We begin to see plants coming out of dormancy, changing temperatures, and increasing daylight.

Here’s a quick recap of our Spring Healthy Harvest Habits blog post:

✂️ Habit #1: Pruning
Pruning is one of the best things you can do for your fruit tree to optimize the quality and accessibility of its fruit each season. It encourages healthy airflow, and allows you to manage the size of your tree and the direction of its growth.

🔎 Habit #2: Monitor for & Identify ‘Pests‘
It’s time to inspect your tree for fire blight, scab, powdery mildew, scale and mites in the early Spring. By late March, when orchard plants begin to wake up and come out of dormancy, disease can begin to spread.

🚰 Habit #3: Mulching & Watering
Mulch helps the soil retain moisture, keeping the fruit tree hydrated, and it also prevents weeds from growing around the tree (thus competing for resources such as nutrients and water).

🍴 Habit #4: Feeding & Fertilizing
A waking tree is a hungry tree! It is recommended to apply nourishment around four times after the tree breaks out of dormancy at the different stages of growth, including bud break, flowering, after petal fall, and another time after petal fall.

🌱 Habit #5: Planting
Okay, maybe this one is not a habit…but perhaps it could be! Consider planting a new fruit tree for yourself and for future generations.

Check out the details on our blog, including further reading, video demonstrations, and local Toronto recommendations for Spring!

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We’re so excited to be part of 2 Seedy Saturdays this March! 🌷

Whether you’re a seasoned gardener planning your 2026 garden, or just starting your first herb box, come say hi, swap some seeds, and talk fruit with us!

Where to find us:
📍 March 7: Evergreen Brick Works (9am–2pm)
📍 March 28: Scadding Court Community Centre (10am–2pm)

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👋 Calling all collectors! For everyone who just can’t bring yourself to get rid of those plastic clamshells, or takeout cutlery, or those yard waste bags you never use, thinking they might have a purpose…well, they do!

Your ‘trash’ could be our ‘treasure’! Every season, we rely on community donations of these items to allow us to lead more picking events and share more fruit.

We’d love your help sourcing the items on our running wish list to cut costs for our Fruit Picking Program. Have something you want to share, but it’s not on this list? Get in touch! We might want it - or know a group who could use it. Stay tuned for Toronto-wide donation drop off days in May and June!

📌 Check the tags on this post on Instagram to see other local groups we know of who are also seeking item donations!

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1LA7e6HH7gkLNjyM-w3HKnGXacYHSV6pH_5DGb4rSe18/edit?tab=t.0

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