Introducing Public Orchard Day — always the Saturday before Mother’s Day! Public Orchard Day is a celebration of food grown in community spaces. The Resilience Hub is partnering with Mt. Joy Orchard, Portland’s largest community orchard and food forest, for this year’s event. We plan to grow in future years to include other public orchard sites in Portland and around the state.
10 – 11 am: Annual Permaculture Plant Swap
This year, the Resilience Hub’s Annual Plant Swap will take place at the North Street Community Garden, behind the East End Community School — park at the top of the hill. The Plant Swap is by far our biggest swap of the year. You’re still welcome to bring other items but the focus this month is plants — indoor plants, outdoor plants, seeds, perennials, annuals, fruit, whatever you’ve got to share. There will be tons to trade, and lots of great information being passed along.
The main idea is that we are stepping outside of the cash economy and mutually “gifting” things to each other in a way that turns whatever we have in abundance into a diversity of goodness and good will. In the past, people have used the “comments” area of this page to talk about what they think they might be bringing which drums up early interest!
11 – 4 pm: Mt. Joy celebrates Public Orchard Day
Join us after the plant swap for the opening permablitz of the season at Mt. Joy Community Orchard! We will be building soil by sheet mulching rows of trees, and planting trees and perennials.
11:00 – Opening Circle
11:15 – Work Party and Workshops
1:00 – Community Potluck Lunch. If you’d like, bring a dish to share! Also definitely bring personal drinking water containers and a “potluck kit” (plate, bowl, utensils).
2:00 – 3:30 – Work Party and Workshops
3:30 – 4:00 – Cleanup and Closing Circle
There will be lots of opportunities to learn about the diverse plantings through free hands on workshops and tours. Workshops include Bark Grafting with Aaron Parker and Richard Hodges, Medicinal Herbs with Mischa Schuler, Weaving Bittersweet with Zack Rouda, and more. Stay tuned for the complete schedule in coming weeks.
This is a family and kid-friendly event. We look forward to seeing you at the orchard!