Philadelphia Orchard Project

Home
United States
Philadelphia, PA
Philadelphia Orchard Project

Mission. The Philadelphia Orchard Project plants and supports community orchards in the city of Philadelphia.

POP partners with a wide variety of community groups, providing them with an orchard design, plant sourcing, planting supervision, and training in orchard care. Our community partners own, maintain, harvest, and distribute the orchard produce within their neighborhoods, thus expanding community control over their food resources. POP currently supports 67 community orchards and has planted 1,578 fruit trees over the last 15 years!

10/30/2025

Tree Netting Update 🍐🪾

In late July, POP staff at the Learning Orchard implemented tree netting as an alternative to fruit bagging as a physical control against pest predation in the orchard.

The Asian Pear row was selected for the experiment since it experienced heavy squirrel predation and crop loss in 2024: 1 tree was covered in netting (The cultivar “Chojuro”), 1 tree had some nylon fruit bags (the cultivar “Korean Giant”) and the remaining trees in the row were left without any sort of barriers or coverings (the cultivars “Shinseiki,” “Shinko,” and “Tsu Li”)

Due to lower mammalian predation on pome fruit this season, crop loss between the three various controls were more or less the same and overall the trees experienced significantly less predation than in previous years, with the “Tsu Li” and “Shinko” bearing significant harvests since being planted!

A possible explanation for this could be due to less drought-like conditions in the orchard, with Philadelphia experiencing a small increase in rain this season compared to last year.

POP staff will continue to experiment with tree netting next season to compare to this season’s findings! It is possible that changing conditions will impact the results of tree netting vs. fruit bagging vs. none of the above. Though having more fruit is always welcome, it would be great to see these controls in action so we can execute targeted controls to decrease future mammalian predation not only at the POP learning orchard but in community orchards across the city that may not be as lucky as we were this year!

Image Descriptions:

Image 1
“Chojuro” Asian Pear tree covered in a tree net

Image 2
Sharon holding the ripe “Chojuro” Asian Pear after harvest

Video 3
Sharon uncovering the sox from the “Korean Giant” Asian Pear

Image 4
Sharon holding the “Korean Giant” pear after harvest

Image 5
The “Tsu Li” Asian Pear almost ready for harvest, which was covered with neither netting nor a fruit bag

Image 6
The “Shinko” Asian Pear after harvest, which was covered with neither netting nor a fruit bag

10/28/2025

We had a great fall planting at Shackamaxon / this month! Filling in the second stage of our native food forest with an abundant flower and shrub filled pollinator garden. We prepared this space by solarizing, laying out a tarp to cover the soil, where it received heat from the sun for several weeks, through the end of summer and into fall. This helped to remove stubborn grasses and weeds. During the planting we further prepared the soil, spaced out our design, and planted nearly 150 plants with the Friends of Penn Treaty Park volunteer crew! The garden features native perennial favorites like bee balm, black eyed Susan, Baptisia, Coreopsis, chokeberry, native roses and more.

Images: New plantings, POP staff and Friends of Penn Treaty Park preparing to plant, aromatic aster, preparing the ground before the planting.

10/24/2025

Crimson dogwood leaves firework along the fenceline. Hachiya persimmons sunset orange gently alerting that they’re almost ready for picking. Sweet honeynut squashes, thin-skinned and bright, ripen on dying vines. Jujubes transition from crunchy, green, apple-like fruit to mellow date-like treats and fresh mulch steams in the early morning under the grapevine arbor and around this season’s aging berry canes in preparation for winter’s arrival. As another season slows and comes to the end at the POP Learning Orchard, harvests and colors abound with autumn’s gifts!

We give thanks to the orchard for a record-breaking fig harvest (averaging around 17 pounds a week for the last 2 months), the first ever pomegranate tasting from the Learning Orchard high tunnel, a productive season for the persimmon row, another delicious offering of maypop’s from the vines growing on the nursery fenceline and plenty of friends old and new to taste the orchard along the way. Here are some mid to late fall highlights from the POP Learning Orchard.

Catch some of this week’s harvest at the Black Farmer’s Market tomorrow 10/25 from 11-3 at the Freedom Greens + Garden on 5200 Pine St 🍏🥬🍅🌿

Image Details:

1. Early morning light peeking through a persimmon tree
2. A variety of figs and tomatoes for staff and volunteers to snack on or take home
3. Ripening Hachiya persimmon
4. Harvest of tomatoes, gita long beans and mustard greens
5. Goldrush apple tree
6. A walk along the persimmon tree row
7. A Medlar fruit
8. Volunteer cherry tomatoes and Fuyu persimmons packaged for distro
9. Becky, Phil and Sharon holding the largest Asian pears harvested in the orchard- aptly named ‘Korean Giant’
10. Maypops on the nursery fenceline
11. Caro admiring a sweet woolly bear caterpillar on the squash vines in the zone 8 high tunnel
12. The first pomegranate fruit harvested from the high tunnel pomegranate!
13. A van filled with new nursery plants for fall plantings across POP partner sites
14. A generous harvest of mushrooms, cucamelons, ground cherries and cherry tomatoes
15. Hibiscus grown from seedlings kindly gifted from the Build Your Home Apothecary cohort this year

10/16/2025

Can’t join us this Sunday at Sankofa’s HarvestFest at Bartram’s Garden? Don’t worry, we’ll be pressing more fresh cider at next Sunday’s Harvest Fest at Awbury Arboretum!

Sunday, October 26th, 2025 | 11 AM – 4 PM | The Farm at Awbury Arboretum, 6336 Ardleigh St.

Celebrate the season at Awbury Arboretum’s annual Harvest Fest! Gather with friends, family, and neighbors for a day filled with autumn fun across the farm. Harvest Fest is free and open to the public, this year’s festivities includes:

A bustling marketplace with local vendors
Delicious food and beverage trucks
Hayrides throughout the arboretum
Seasonal crafts and activities
And more fall favorites!

POP staff and volunteers will be pressing fresh apple cider between 11am-1:30pm.

Marketplace Vendors:

Resolve Philly | Shells Shea Naturals | Vintage Treasures | Indigo Child | Sir Michael’s STEM Table | Delta E.M. Wellness | A Good Thing For You, LLC | GFresh Emporium | Action Karate | & more!

Food and Beverage Vendors:

Philadelphia Mead Company | Calaveras Street Tacos | Hardy Funnel Cakes | 2 Street Sammies | Frios Popsicles | Cider Belly Hard Cider | & more!

More info about Awbury Harvest Fest:
https://awbury.org/event/harvest-fest-2025/

10/13/2025

We’re so excited to have Sunghee Kim from leading us in a Gotegam Making Workshop this Sunday at FDR Park!

Come learn how to make a popular dried fruit snack with persimmons, using a traditional Korean drying method!

RSVP is required! For more workshop details and to register please visit the link: bit.ly/gotegam or email Deja at [email protected]

Hope to see you soon!

10/09/2025

Join in the fun at Sankofa Community Farm at Bartram’s Garden for their annual Harvest Fest on Sunday 10/19, 12-3pm.

Come celebrate, bring in the season’s harvest and uplift Sankofa Community Farm! This will be a day of community joy and healing with music, workshops, and more. Stop by POP’s table for cider-pressing throughout the event.

1. Wide shot of festival attendees painting pumpkins at the festival.

2. Volunteers helping to press fresh apple cider.

10/07/2025

Fall is planting time!

Fall is actually the best time of year to plant most perennial plants, including trees, shrubs, vines, and perennial flowers and herbs! Planting in fall allows for two seasons of cooler weather for plants to get established before the heat of summer. Our preferred planting time is early October through mid November. Fall plantings should be watered twice a week until they go fully dormant.

Need inspiration? See newly revised POP Orchard Plant List and POP Recommended Plant Nursery List via the linktree in our bio!

The only orchard plants we generally prefer spring for planting are tender ones that don’t like the cold (like figs, pomegranates, rosemary, etc) and evergreen ones (stone pines, grape hollies, etc), which can dry out in winter conditions.

1. POP volunteers and partners assist with the food forest planting demonstration at our POPCORE Orchard Design workshop on Saturday.

2. Excerpts from newly updated POP Orchard Plant List, see more via linktree in our bio.

4. Volunteers planting herbaceous companion plants at a POP orchard!

10/02/2025

This time last year we began the transition of one of our alley cropped rows into a native medicinal herb row at the Learning Orchard. In a young orchard, alley cropping can be a way to grow annuals and biannual crops between tree rows before the canopy reaches maturity. This row has shown us beautiful blooms for six continuous months and been a way to learn more about native medicinal plants, how they accompany trees, feed insects, and provide herbal and culinary gifts to our lives.

Check out the blog ‘Native Perennial Herb Row Update’ on our website to read more about how the row has settled in and the timing of their blooms through spring, summer, and into fall.

We recently dedicated this row to community herbalist Nyambi Royster to honor her legacy to the Philadelphia herbal within our space.

Pics:
Black cohosh flowering under plum tree
Angelica
Echinacea
Black cohost leaves with water droplets
Goldenrod
Echinacea with bee
Blue vervain and boneset
Echinacea and monarda
Goldenrod

https://www.phillyorchards.org/2025/09/16/plow-native-perennial-herb-row-update/

09/26/2025

Here’s a peak at the early days of Fall at PLOW! We’re weeding, we’re harvesting, we’re prepping for winter…

Pic 1: Caro smiling in the orchard with bayberry wax candles they made from our bayberry shrub!

Pic 2: Sunset at the orchard

Pic 3: A volunteer planting garlic as an alley crop between two rows of trees.

Pic 4: Phil’s hand (plus a peek of his boot) lifting up a caper bloom in our high tunnel

Pic 5: Fig leaves blowing in the wind & Corrie emerging from within a voluminous patch of fig trees

Pic 6: Sharon admiring the fruits of our labor- an eggplant and an equally large pawpaw.

Pic 7: Deja and Corrie using pole pickers to harvest our pears, peeking at the camera hidden inside a tree.

09/25/2025

Last Saturday September 20 marked the 16th annual Apple Fest held in East Fairmount Park with our friends from and while we didn’t get pictures of all the amazing activities that took place, we wanted to share a few! Missing from the photo archive was a DIY apple cider vinegar making workshop with (using the apple scraps from POP’s cider press!); pawpaw seed saving with ; and a yard tree giveaway with , with pawpaws grown in POP’s nursery!

1. POP Lead Orchard Volunteers Chioma and Gwen prep apples for the press
2. A volunteer helps turn the cider press
3. Fresh cider collects in a metal bowl
4. Apples get chopped before going through the mill
5. State Rep Roni Green () and her granddaughter help crush apples in the mill
6. A line-up of brightly painted mini pumpkins sitting in the sun to dry
7. POP co-directors Kim (left) and Phil (right) smile along with POP orchard educator Alkebu-Lan, as they stand under a mature chestnut tree, now cared for by FAFF, that was originally planted by POP around 2011

09/17/2025

While fall is a time for abundant harvests, new season celebrations and plantings, pruning your fruit trees may need to be on the checklist too!

Winter remains the primary time to prune trees since they’re in their dormant state however certain conditions, such as diseased, damaged or dead wood or weather causing a tree’s limbs to endanger a structure may call for emergency pruning no matter what time of the year.

Diseases such as fireblight, black knot or cankers may continue to spread and cause further damage to the tree if not removed as soon as possible. Dead or damaged wood may provide future entryways for pests and disease to enter and spread.

When emergency pruning fireblight:
Emergency prune out all infected wood to prevent spread, at least 8-12” below any signs of the disease. Infected trees will have canker on tree bark that look dead or decayed, weeping wounds, burnt-looking wood and leaves, and/or curled branch tips also known as a “shepherd’s crook.” Sterilize tools with 70% rubbing alcohol between each cut to limit the spread of the disease.

When emergency pruning black knot or cankers:
Remove all knots and swellings by pruning 3-4 inches below the knot, down to healthy wood. Sterilize tools with 70% rubbing alcohol between each cut to limit the spread of the fungal disease.

Remember the following:

Sterilize your tools!
Sanitize between every cut for disease prone trees during the growing season. For easy disinfecting, we recommend carrying a spray bottle with you of rubbing (isopropyl 70%) alcohol or a bleach solution (1 part bleach: 10 parts water) to wipe down tools.

Keep all pruning tools rust-free and as sharp as possible! If they are dull, they will not cut cleanly and will leave a tree more susceptible to disease.

Too much pruning can result in unhealthy growth. Pruning after mid summer can also result in new growth that doesn’t have time to harden off before winter, so avoid all but emergency pruning between AUG and DEC

Image 1:
Dark and shriveled leaves and fruitlets in the middle of an asian pear tree with green and healthy fruitlets surrounding it

Image 2: black knot on a tree branch

09/16/2025

Join us THIS Saturday at The Learning Orchard with ✨ We’ll be mixing up something sweet!🍇

RSVP Required!
bit.ly/Figandgrape

Address

4000 Woodland Avenue
Philadelphia, PA
19104

Telephone

+12157241247

Website

https://linktr.ee/PhillyOrchards

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when Philadelphia Orchard Project posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Contact The Business

Send a message to Philadelphia Orchard Project:

Shortcuts

Want your business to be the top-listed Pet Store/pet Service in Philadelphia?

Plant the Future with POP!

POP partners with a wide variety of community groups, providing them with an orchard design, plant sourcing, planting supervision, and training in orchard care. Our community partners own, maintain, harvest, and distribute the orchard produce within their neighborhoods, thus expanding community control of food resources. POP currently supports 62 community orchards in neighborhoods across the city and has planted 1,258 fruit trees over the last 11 years!