At the Pulaski Zeralda Community Garden in Germantown, the air is thick with the scent of green onions and okra. These vegetables grow from some of the 38 plots, including one dedicated to a local women’s center. This season alone, the garden yielded blackberries, strawberries, tomatoes, okra, peppers, corn and collards. The garden participates in
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You’d think that after protecting 50 gardens, the process would get easier. But for the Neighborhood Gardens Trust (NGT), a nonprofit tasked with preserving gardens, securing each parcel of land is a unique challenge. This spring NGT and members of Brewerytown Garden at 27th and Master streets celebrated the protection of some of the garden’s
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I’m bidding for a piece of my childhood. That feeling is something that … can be traumatizing. People are losing a part of themselves.” — Michael Gonzalo Moran, Iglesias Gardens board member When a notice went up in 2015 announcing that a lot his mother had tended as a vegetable garden since the 1990s would
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The Painted Bride Art Center has announced Resistance Garden: Cultivating Abundance, a programming series including five community dinners, five artist residencies, and four zine releases. “When you’re making a radical effort like beautifying and reclaiming land, the best way to engage people is art. Our artist residencies are how we bring an element of creativity
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We at Soil Generation have been organizing for land justice for growers of color in Philadelphia since 2014. Community control of land is the foundation of our collective struggle toward liberation. Whether the issue is food, education or housing, community control of resources requires community control of the land. As rapid development displaces community gardens
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Before the chic boutiques and overpriced cafés arrive, the first sign of gentrification is often a slew of ubiquitous posters stapled to telephone poles reading, “We Buy Houses.” One is more than likely to find these illegally-placed advertisements in low-income parts of the city where desperation for fast cash can outweigh the benefit of long-term
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There’s nothing like a great bookstore. At their best, they can provide both a mirror to who we are and expand the possibilities of who we can be. They are the hubs of the dreamers and visionaries. I share in the disappointment of many Philadelphians that Joseph Fox Bookshop will be closing after 71 years
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From seed to supper” sums up the credo of Food Moxie, a Northwest Philadelphia nonprofit that “educates and inspires people to grow, prepare and eat healthy food,” says Lisa Mosca, executive director of this offshoot of Weavers Way Co-op. Launched in 2006, Food Moxie grew from a project where Weavers Way in Mount Airy supplied
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On a small plot of land just on the edge of Southwest Philadelphia sits a yellow school bus. A year ago the gutted vehicle wouldn’t have warranted a second look. But now the bus has been rehabilitated, with reinforced windows and flooring, and sits under a blue tarp to protect it from the rain. The
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On a quiet street in East Germantown is a small farm blooming with red bok choy, turnips, Brussel sprouts and nasturtium, all grown organically. Located within the confines of Awbury Arboretum, this is one of Philly’s “food forests,” also known as forest gardens. Food forests are a modern name for an ancient practice—historically found in
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