Surrounding nearly every suburban business center and office park are swaths of manicured grass, occasionally interrupted by ornamental landscaping. Unlike green space at schools or residential complexes, it’s rare to see this outdoor space used for recreation or sunbathing. In fact, it isn’t really used for anything. Up Top Acres, an agricultural startup based in
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The helicopter was worth a shot, Dave Fahnestock thought. The owner of Hands on the Earth Orchard in Lititz, Lancaster County, which sells apples and peaches at farmers markets in Clark Park, Rittenhouse Square and Bala Cynwyd, hoped the downdraft from the propellers would mix warmer air with the freezing air hugging the ground across
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Farmers are worried, but they don’t want to talk about it. Evidence is mounting that the nutrient-rich sewage sludge many have applied to their farmland for decades as a low-cost fertilizer often contains perfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, a class of “forever chemicals” that resist degradation in nature and are hazardous to human health. Typically vocal
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Here’s a recipe for a lovely summer day: Pack a little picnic, grab your best floppy hat or Phillies cap, slather on some sunscreen and take a mini road trip to a nearby farm to go fruit picking. This fun outdoor activity is a life-affirming blend of frolicking in a field and getting access to
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Some people turn to the ocean for philosophical reflection. The vastness, the rhythm of crashing waves — it gets the mind pondering. But for me, farms teach the same lesson on a more human scale. On a farm, a particular crop may only be around for a few weeks or months. You have a limited
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The shortest distance between two points is incontestably a straight line. But the route Matt Kirchner followed prior to launching Local Bound, a local food distribution business, meandered through South Jersey, North Carolina, Los Angeles, New York City and Point Breeze, and from baseball diamonds to family farms. Kirchner’s passion for playing baseball dominated his
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Germantown Kitchen Garden’s farmer, Amanda Staples, who hails from Upper Darby, did not grow up on a farm. Although her grandparents operated a Christmas tree farm near Clarks Summit, Lackawanna County, Staples’ initial hands-on contact with farming was growing lima beans in her backyard for an elementary school assignment. After graduating from Temple University with
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Joseph Nguyen, 27, lives in South Philly and holds a 2020 Temple University degree in international business. But if you ask him what he does, the answer is much more nuanced. “I live three different lives,” he says. Nguyen performs audits for government and corporate clients, competes as a Muay Thai martial artist, and runs
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Moving to a new home is a chore. Now imagine relocating an entire farm. That’s what the folks at Truelove Seeds did in March — for the third time in nine years — when they moved to a two-acre plot at the Schuylkill Center for Environmental Education in Roxborough. Owen Taylor, cofounder of the Philadelphia-based
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After nearly two decades, Henry Got Crops, the farm at the W.B. Saul Agricultural High School, still doesn’t turn a profit. But that doesn’t bother senior farm manager Ali Ascherio. The partnership between the school and Weavers Way Co-op pays off in other ways. The vegetable farm takes up two acres behind the school. A
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