FARMVILLE – The Town of Farmville is getting a new orchard.

The Town, teaming with The Fruit Tree Planting Foundation, Edy's Fruit Bars and Zynga's virtual game of FarmVille, will plant an orchard next to the Wilck's Lake boat ramp Monday, June 13. To get the job done, they'll be looking for a few volunteers.

“…If you pull into the parking lot at the boat ramp, it's the area to the left…,” commented Town Horticulturalist David Fowlkes. “It goes down towards the Buffalo Creek.”

It is, perhaps, an ideal spot for an orchard-right next to a flowing water source in a site selected by Town Manager Gerald Spates.

Farmville is also ideal for the promotion, simply given its name. A handful of players of the popular FarmVille game (where participants develop and manage their own farm and crops on-line) have been invited to come to the real Farmville and help plant the real orchard that is expected to include apple, plum, fig, pomegranate, cherry and pear trees.

So instead of playing FarmVille, they'll be visiting Farmville and the community as well as the environment will benefit.

It will be, of course, a community orchard and one of the requirements is that the fruit can never be sold. Given that it will take some time before the trees bear fruit, there is some time before that process of how it will be distributed needs to be worked out.

But for now, the focus is on the planting.

Volunteers are asked to stop by at 11 a.m. Monday and bring their own shovel. The more volunteers, the less time it'll take to do the work. The project overview and instructions kick-off at 11 a.m., the ceremonial tree planting is scheduled for 11:15 a.m., and tree planning/workshop and Edy's Fruit Bars sampling from 11:30 .m. to 2:30 p.m. There will also be a barbecue lunch and live bluegrass music.