Recreating a Heritage Orchard in Druid Hill Park during the Pandemic

Sometimes you hold your breath, just hoping that a project you are working on will be permitted to move forward.  Occasionally, you need to exhale and recognize that the project will not yet move forward.  Other times, you get to breathe in the joy of a project that you so deeply cared about having successfully come to fruition. One of these joyful outcomes happened when in the midst of the fear-inducing pandemic, Baltimore City joined forces with community groups to plant a beautiful fruit orchard in Druid Hill Park.

This project aspired to honor Earth Day, the historic pear orchard that use to exist in Druid Hill Park, and the work of Ted Martello of Tree Baltimore (a part of Baltimore City’s Department of Recreation and Parks). Several years ago, Ted had taken the Baltimore Orchard Project’s Fruit and Nut Academy (a course that provided future orchardists with the necessary information and tools to steward orchards) and dreamed of an orchard near the community garden in Druid Hill Park. 

Ted Martello shared his dream with me as president of the Baltimore Orchard Project, a longstanding and newly independent volunteer-based Maryland nonprofit, and our board knew it was a dream that should be fulfilled.  What a wonderful gift to provide the citizens of Baltimore, especially in these scary times, an easily accessible orchard in a popular park that will only become more popular as the restoration of the Druid Hill Park lake is finalized. 

Orchards, like humans, thrive when they are carefully stewarded.  They need to be cared for and pruned so that the tree stays healthy and the fruit is not so far from the ground that it is no longer accessible.  As the tree matures into its fruit-bearing years, some trees require assistance in removing certain baby fruits so that the fruits that remain can mature and be hardy (other trees do this shedding on their own).  After this careful tending, orchards provide one of the most joyous realities, delicious fruit that can enrich and enhance any diet. 

One of my earliest magical memories is harvesting fruit from the orchard that my dad planted in our Baltimore City home.  He did it to prevent a hill from eroding, but to us children the unbelievable miracle was that trees would bear delicious fruit that we could pick to immediately pop in our mouths and also preserve for eating in the middle of winter.  The Baltimore Orchard Project has worked with communities, schools, and churches throughout Baltimore to plant more than 2,000 trees and harvest more than 20,000 pounds of edible fruit.  We work in areas of Baltimore that are remembered and then forgotten to create the long-lasting magic that I and countless others feel when you reach up and pick a piece of fruit from a tree.

Tree Baltimore and the Baltimore Orchard Project wanted to extend this spellbinding joy to Druid Hill Park.  Baltimore City’s Department of Recreation and Parks approved the project and provided assistance with it. Hurdles, however, still needed to be faced and overcome.  First came Covid-19 and the elimination of the ability to use the wonderful volunteers that help the Baltimore Orchard Project thrive.  Next, the expected grant money did not come through.  Despite that the planting went forward.  BOP dug deep and found other funds and was able to replace its volunteers by employing Edible Eden Baltimore Foodscapes, a wonderful local small business that plants edible and ecological landscapes throughout the extended Baltimore community. 

Tree Baltimore happily donated the twenty fruit trees, trimmed sod, and augured the holes necessary to plant the trees. The Baltimore Orchard Project was able to buy the perennials at cost from Blue Water Baltimore’s Herring Run Nursery. Compost Cab donated the compost necessary to give the planted trees a boost. Between Tree Baltimore, the Baltimore Orchard Project and Blue Water workers (all dutifully masked and physically distanced from one another), an orchard was created that is already lovely and promises to bear pears, apples and persimmons within the next few years.  Many hands are needed to create magic during normal times, and fortunately all hands necessary to create this Druid Hill orchard during these unusual times were found.