Three turtles are waiting in the garden at the Max Myers Playground. The kids have to find them.
As David Crutchfield, garden educator with Farm Philly’s Junior Farmers program, leads the after-school program attendees outside, the children sprint ahead, eager to dive into the kale, squash, beets and other plants to search.
The Northeast Philly recreation complex, which also includes a pool, tennis courts, playing fields and a classroom building, has had garden beds set in the grass along Hellerman Street since at least 2014, when Crutchfield, whom the kids call “Brother D,” started with Farm Philly.
I get a chance to garden with the kids, teach them nature, horticulture.”
— David Crutchfield, garden educator, Farm Philly
Skippers and bees buzz around flowering sedum growing out of hexagonal beds in one section of the garden. More plants spring from old soccer balls tucked into the corners. Fat beets raise their shoulders above the soil next to corn stalks on a mound nearby, and a few yards away, raised beds of kale, sage, mint and other herbs hide the turtles.
Junior Farmers supports gardening at 10 recreation centers and playgrounds, according to its website. Crutchfield rotates through gardens in Northeast Philadelphia, visiting them once a week. He also works at the Pennypack Environmental Center (Farm Philly and the environmental center are part of Philadelphia Parks & Recreation), which gives him access to animals, dead and alive, to work into his garden education sessions. Crutchfield describes his role as “naturalist,” his official title notwithstanding. “I get a chance to garden with the kids, teach them nature, horticulture,” Crutchfield says.
Growing new foods leads children to try new foods. “These kids take this stuff home, and they say, ‘Mom, we need to Google this. I don’t know how to cook a beet,’” Crutchfield says. He adds that that later, “they go into the supermarket and say, ‘Oh, yeah, Mom, get the beets.’”
“These kids take this stuff home, and they say, ‘Mom, we need to Google this. I don’t know how to cook a beet.’”
— David Crutchfield, garden educator, Farm Philly
His afternoon with the group at Max Myers begins as the kids are cleaning up from their snack time. He takes out a half-grown ball python and some docile arthropods — a hissing cockroach and a millipede — and later a raccoon skull and pelt, before taking the group outside.
“Brother D!” the kids yell as they ask for clues. Soon, though, they find a plastic toy turtle, and then the shell from a dead red-eared slider. After more coaxing, a very alive box turtle is discovered hiding beneath the kale.
Before moving to Philadelphia 12 years ago and starting with the City, Crutchfield ran a garden at a women’s shelter as part of New York’s GreenThumb, where he saw the peace that growing and preparing food could bring to the residents.
Here in Philadelphia, Crutchfield’s work with Farm Philly doesn’t just teach kids how to grow food. “I share my amazement, because I’m still amazed.”
