Tigar Black picks fruit from trees at the Mount Joy Orchard in Portland last week. Derek Davis/Staff Photographer

On a humid August afternoon, Aaron Parker, Alyssa Gavlik and Mark Read climbed the steep slope from Washington Avenue up toward the East End School.

Read, 57, bit into an apple he picked on his way up the hill.

“A little tart,” he said, but kept eating.

Gavlik, 33, pointed out the growing peaches, still firm but just days from being ready to eat.

“This spot looks good,” said Parker, 37, pointing to a clearing at the top of the slope.

The three lead volunteers who run the Mount Joy Orchard were scouting a spot to plant new chestnut saplings that will eventually grow into thick, towering American chestnuts, which arborists have been working to bring back in recent years.

And the chestnuts won’t be the only newcomers to the orchard this summer. Blueberry bushes, a field of wildflowers and pawpaw trees have also been planted in the public space.

The hillside maze of herbs, wildflowers and fruit trees is open to all. Anyone can come and harvest as much as they need, as often as they need.

Mount Joy Orchard volunteers Aaron Parker, left, Mark Read and Alyssa Gavlik. Derek Davis/Staff Photographer

The orchard, located on a little more than an acre of land between Washington Avenue and North Street, was created around 2013. Today, the city’s largest orchard has about 100 trees and more than 20 varieties of fruit.

In 2016, Jeff Tarling, the city arborist at the time, was working with the East End School to plant some trees on school grounds. When a few extra fruit trees were left over, he decided to plant them outside the school gates on the steep sloping hill that was then just an unmowed lawn running from the school down toward Washington Avenue.

Parker and some others in the neighborhood talked with Tarling about the trees, saying they’d like to see more planted. And the idea for the orchard was born.

“It was really a great collaboration between the neighborhood and the city,” Tarling said.

Michael Brennan, who was mayor in the orchard’s early days, was keen on planting more trees, so Tarling had no trouble getting the funding to hook up water to the site and buy more trees. But then the orchard was left in the hands of volunteers, as it is now.

Parker has been there from the beginning, and Gavlik and Read started helping out in 2021.

“Lots of organizers kind of drift in and out,” Parker said. “We’re very open to even if you just have a little bit of time to volunteer. We try to meet everybody where they’re at with what they want to do.”

About seven regular volunteers now keep the place going. But around 100 people show up each year to help out on the bimonthly work days. The community volunteer events are held from May through October, on the second Saturday and fourth Thursday of the month.

And over the years, the orchard has grown.

Like his predecessor, Mark Reiland, the city’s new arborist, is a supporter of the orchard. The city continues to supply the space with wood chips and new plants when volunteers ask for them.

Peaches hang from a tree at the Mount Joy Orchard, public orchard in Portland that is open to anyone who wants to harvest fruit. Derek Davis/Staff Photographer

Parker sends out emails and posts on social media when fruit is ripe, alerting anyone who keeps up with the orchard to come and harvest.

“There isn’t much waste here. I don’t notice fruit rotting on the ground and nobody using it,” Gavlik said.

Volunteers have tried to set the orchard up to be as low maintenance as possible. To be hospitable to wildlife, they don’t spray for pests or maintain a lawn but instead plant companion species – other shrubs and wildflowers that help the trees grow healthier – near the trees to create a more diverse ecosystem.

A COLLABORATIVE EFFORT

Each volunteer has brought a unique touch to the place. Gavlik has a special interest in planting new apple varieties. Parker works at a rare plant nursery and had the idea to plant pawpaws, which he says taste like a coconut-mango hybrid. Read planted comfrey, mint and milkweed among the trees.

“It’s a part of the park that’s so steep, it wasn’t getting a lot of use before. And now it’s become this biodiverse area. Wildlife spends time there,” Parker said.

Despite the orchard’s success, Parker said he thinks a lot of people still don’t know about it. He’d be happy to see more people out there picking fruit.

A bumblebee clings to goldenrod in a wildflower area of the city’s public orchard in Munjoy Hill. Derek Davis/Staff Photographer

The surrounding neighborhood, of course, continues to change.

Earlier this year, the housing developer Redfern Properties announced plans to construct a seven-story apartment building right next door to the orchard, which raised volunteers’ concerns. They worried that the building might block light to the trees. But when they did some research, they found that the shadow was unlikely to fall on the trees during the growing season.

Now, Parker feels optimistic about the new development and the new neighbors it could bring. After all, he’d like to see more volunteers and do more than the bare-minimum maintenance.

“We are tentatively optimistic about building good relationships with people who move into that new housing,” he said.