Busy as Bees

When we looked toward spring in the middle of winter, we envisioned the upcoming events coming together step-by-step. As the bees emerge to pollinate flowers, we thought, we should be on...step number three.

Here's what we meant by steps:

Step 1: Recruit volunteers.

Step 2: Put up a deer fence.

Step 3: Get the trees.

Step 4: Plant the trees.

Step 5: Give out shirts and other rewards to our Kickstarter campaign donors. (Our dog likes to model in her spare time.)

Step 6: Fix up the farm stand.

Step 7: Sow cover crop and vegetable seeds.

But now that spring is here, it seems that all the steps are happening at the same time.

As the photos above--and the brevity of this entry--reveal, the past couple of weeks have been chock-full of preparations! We are busy as bees.

Next week marks the continuation of our educational programs at our first four participating schools, as well as the installation of all four orchards. Stay tuned for pictures and news on those momentous events!

One Done and Many Begun

Let there be no pause before we send our immense gratitude to all of the donors on Kickstarter.com this spring! We are happy to report that our goal was reached last Friday, thanks to many donations of all sizes. We worked together, and we did it! Thank you for helping us reach 1,000 students this year through educational exhibits that will remain in their orchards for many more years--and many more students--to come.

A list of the generous donors who made this campaign a success! 

So, now that our campaign is done, many more projects have begun!

Yesterday, we broke ground on our nursery and planted the first row of trees to be installed in future school orchards. Today, the planting continues!

We will finish much of the preparation for our nursery, as well as for our farm stand, during Maine's upcoming April Vacation Week. The next week promptly marks the beginning of our educational programming with this year's participating schools, and April 26-27 are our orchard installation days!

Many thanks to Adams County Nursery for enabling us begin our first round of school orchards with mature and beautiful trees; to Skillins Greenhouses for the compost, mulch and other soil amendments which will make it possible to grow our own fruit trees for future schools; to NGA and Home Depot for the essential fencing and other materials which will create a sustainable nursery, farm stand and orchard program for children and families; to Votenet Solutions and their clients, funding the planting of hundreds of trees this year and in years to come; to Fertil USA for making our trees easy to plant at home for gardeners supporting our program; to Two Epic Designs for providing rewards to our Kickstarter donors and helping us spread the word about our program through organic cotton T's; to FedCo and MOFGA for advice and supplies; to Johnny's Seeds and High Mowing Seeds for your donations; to Build-A-Sign and Dan Feller, making beautiful and educational signage accessible in our orchards; and to all of our individual donors who help fund the programs of ReTreeUS!

You can follow the number of trees and school orchards we install by checking out the tree count on the right side of the blog screen. Get ready to see some trees!

Health and the Home Depot

Apple growers who take health into account--the health of the soil, of the trees, of the fruit that we eat, of our families, and of our communities--are the ones leading us all to better answers. 

-Michael Phillips, author of A Guide for the Organic Orchardist 

...and so it was with that same idea and same sort of enthusiasm that Richard and I went to Home Depot yesterday. Gift card (from our National Gardening Association grant), list, and camera in hand, we entered the handy world yesterday morning and came out with almost everything left on our list!

The camera unfortunately failed in the first five minutes, so we couldn't take pictures of this exciting and useful adventure through towering aisles of endless fine tools.

Fortunately though, the trip was a huge success! We were able to mark almost everything we need to start our orchards, nursery, and farm stand off the list: wire fencing for school orchards and our nursery, soaker hoses, a lock box for donations at the farm stand...the list goes on.

Approaching the check-out counter was my favorite step! The cashiers were excited to have a part in our project, and we all watched the numbers carefully as the total price approached $500.

Thank you, Home Depot and the NGA! We are relieved to have all the items ready, and now look forward to sharing all of this goodness with students and families in our programs! Our donation-based farm stand will open in the next couple of weeks, and all of the 2012 orchards will be installed by the end of April!

We're not only taking into account--but also making our utmost priority--the health of our soil, trees, food, families and communities. Join us today!