Food Forest Tasks

We are looking to recruit and support individuals and small groups to take responsibility to care for specific parts of this living community.

Does the idea of learning how to care for raspberry patches appeal to you?

How about haskaps, cherries, currants, asparagus, or sunchokes?

Maybe you’d like to learn how to use and care for a scythe?

Interested in delivering food to organizations who get it to those in need?

Or ensuring we grow food for pollinators, or turning grass and tree leaves into compost?

We would love to have you as part of this positive, hopeful slice of life in our community treasure!

Please find below a list of categorized tasks that we need help with.
You can have experience in a specific area, simply be interested in learning more about them, or any combination of the two. You can also choose to help with just one task, or as many as you’d like!

Reach out via our Contact page or email us with the subject line “FOOD FOREST TASKS”. You do not have to live in the South Osborne neighbourhood in order to volunteer with us.

You can also scroll down this page for the full story of how the Food Forest came to be.

Perennial Beds

  • Asparagus

  • Rhubarb

  • Strawberries

Berry Bushes

  • Prune

  • Harvest

  • Propagate/thin

Raspberries

  • Remove dead cane

  • Harvest

  • Thin/propagate

Bed Crops

  • Sunchokes

  • 5’x25’ bed for potatoes

  • Hugelbed Squash

Fruit Trees

  • Tree Nursery

  • Harvest

  • Band for cankerworms 

  • Fly Traps

Cover crop

  • Cut - scythe/grazing animals

  • Pull weeds

Irrigation

  • Set-up pump and hoses for watering sessions

  • Coordinate and lead watering sessions

Donation Coordinator

  • Transport donations

  • Establish relationships with organizations to receive the produce we donate

Compost Bins

  • Design/build/maintain

Children’s Garden

  • Steward

Our Story

In 2011, SSOCC and community volunteers began the journey of turning a weedy slope of Churchill Drive into a food forest. In 2014, we then took on the challenge of restoring a damaged site on the river side of that street. Our quest has not been without setbacks and mistakes. But our efforts have taken hold and are increasingly “bearing fruit”!

Over 120 fruit trees (apple, pear, apricot, plum and cherry) and a variety of berry plants (currants, haskap, gooseberry, raspberry and strawberry) are all producing an increasing amount of fruit. Perennial beds of rhubarb, asparagus and Egyptian walking onions are well established. The orchard, which is becoming a food forest, is on the cusp of providing an abundance of fresh, organic and healthy food.

A small group of dedicated volunteers have planned and, as stewards of sites, led work bees and garden clubs for volunteers. It has been a way of providing direction, imparting knowledge, and collectively sharing the joy of gardening while helping plants meet their needs and reach their potential. This approach continues to work well in our garden sites.

BUT the needs of the food forest have increasingly exceeded our ability to care for it by way of this approach. No longer does one person have enough time or energy to oversee and direct the work required to meet the needs of the food forest, especially during the growing season. There are sporadic and intense periods of demand that the garden club model cannot meet. For example, fruit harvesting requires many hands for a limited period of time. Food distribution during these peak periods also presents a real challenge.

SO, this is why we are looking to recruit and support individuals and small groups to take responsibility to care for a specific part of this living community.

Originally published in the Riverview Reflector.