Harvesting unwanted fruit from private and public land and redistributing it to the community.
One of the things we love doing the most is supporting more opportunities for free food in the community. Last year The Hidden Orchard harvest leader and health promotion champion, Amanda Collins, collaborated with the City of Ballarat Council to organise planting of several fruit trees. The trees are located across from Ballarat Community Health’s … Continue reading Victory Park Micro-Orchard Loading…
Did you know The Hidden Orchard runs workshops? Last winter we had terrific turnout for our pruning workshops with Jean Paul-Trijsburg. Starting with a beginners workshop and then one for the more advanced pruner. We learnt all about equipment, how to choose which branches to prune, creating shape, avoiding fungus growth, what trees grow in … Continue reading Pruning Workshops with Jean Paul-Trijsburg
Is there anything better than a freshly picked apple? 🍏 On a warm Wednesday evening, harvest leader Marianne and her team of volunteers, picked just shy of 70kg of Pears, Apples & Nashis. There were plenty of laughs, sunshine and zuper dupers after job well done 😋 🍐☀️ The fruit was donated too several food … Continue reading Pears, Apples & Nashis Oh My!
Last year THO team were invited to tour the soon to be open @foodbankvictoria Community Food Centre in Ballarat’s West 🍐😊 The centre will house:☕️ Community hub and cafe🍎 Free supermarket to aid food insecurity🍳 Fully equipped kitchen for training & cooking education🥕 Market garden🌱 Space for regenerative agriculture☀️ Storage for food supply during emergency relief The … Continue reading The Hidden Orchard visits FoodBank Food Centre
Check out this amazing work from Harvest Leaders Amanda & Larissa with their team of volunteers. A whopping 94kg of Plums and 83kg of Plumcots Thank you team for your massive efforts. The fruit has been donated to the Neighbourhood Centre Cooking Program and Food is Free Ripon St. If you know of a tree … Continue reading 2024 Season Begins!
Two weeks ago we harvested over 300 kg of apples and pears in Durham Lead. Three harvest leaders and six volunteers spent an hour picking this beautiful bounty Fruit was distributed to Anglicare, Food is Free Laneway, Ballarat Neighbourhood Centre, several local school programs, Breazeway and the Soup bus. Continue reading Harvest in Durham Lead
We have some good news and some bad news… The bad news is that we are pausing our 2020 harvest.We will be hibernating for the next few weeks until the dust settles on COVID-19 and it is safe to resume harvests. A lot of the fruit charities that we donate to are currently closed and … Continue reading COVID-19 ends our Harvest Season
Although the season finished early, we were still able to harvest a whopping 2.5 tonne of fruit which included 1 tonne of apples, 770 kgs of pears, 475 kgs of plum/nectarine & 255 kg of peach/lemons.This doesn’t include all the damaged fruit collected & donated to the local animal sanctuaries.Thanks again to our wonderful volunteer … Continue reading 2.5 tonnes…..wowwww
One of our last harvests held was over the weekend of March 21/22 at two properties in Cambrian Hill & Durham Lead. Multiple Harvest Leaders & families picked 220 kg of apples & pears from Cambrian Hill & a whopping 500 kg of apples & pears from Durham Lead.These were the last fruit drop-offs made … Continue reading Whopping weekend harvest
Saturday February 15 saw a lovely misty morning family pick aided by four enthusiastic children that ended up yielding 60 kgs of apples & plums. Our two volunteer Committee members, Charissa & Kim and their families shared the bounty with both the Salvos & Anglicare with all damaged fruit delivered to Ballarat Wildlife Park. Some … Continue reading A misty morning family harvest