Community Orchard Planting Workshop

Posted July 23, 2026

I’d like to thank the 30+ participants of our first Community Orchard Planting Workshop. We gathered together and planted a forest of 200+ Trees in 2 Hours.

Thank you to the contributers and donors. 300+ Medicinal Herbs were donated by Rupert Adams of Akasha Seeds. Landscape Flags were donated by Windsor Plywood. The new 4 zone irrigation Timer was donated by Irrigation Direct. 200+ Fruit & Nut trees were donated by Nigel Kay. The material costs; $350 mulch , $500 for limestone and fertilizer, and $1000 for irrigation materials were donated by Nigel Kay.

Thank you to the Salt Spring Centre of Yoga for providing the space for the Community Orchard. Thank you to the Farm Land Trust for coordinating promotion for the event. Thank you to Roy, Shannon, Rupert, Stewart, Megan, Oakley and all the wonderful volunteers & supporters.

I hope this project shows that when we gather together, to take care of the land, we can be the change we’d like to see in this world. I hope this event plants a seed and gets people excited to plant fruit & nut trees. Want to be included in the next Community Orchard Planting Event – Contact Us!

On Sunday March 29th we gathered at the Salt Spring Centre of Yoga on Blackburn Road to plant an orchard of 200+ nut trees and medicinal plants as part of our Community Orchard planting project.

This was a hands-on opportunity to take part in something that will feed and support the community for generations to come. Together we had a great time planting over 200 hazelnut trees, along with shagbark hickories, walnuts, and elderberries generously donated by Nigel Kay. Nigel has long been committed to ecological growing and regenerative land stewardship, and his donation makes this orchard possible at a meaningful scale.

We are also grateful to Rupert Adams of Akasha Seeds for donating a variety of medicinal perennials. Rupert is a member of the BC Eco Seed Co-op and has been cultivating vegetable, grain, and herb seeds for over two decades, with a particular focus on medicinal herbs. He is the founder of Kairos Botanicals, a not-for-profit producing ecologically grown medicinal herbs and tinctures, and co-author of Medicinal Herbs to Know and Grow (2021) and Medicinal Perennials to Know and Grow (2023), published by Harbour Publishing. Rupert currently farms at Hope Hill Farm here on Salt Spring Island and continues to contribute to seed security initiatives across Canada.