A group of 30 community gardening organizations and allies have issued a letter asking the Philadelphia Land Bank to change how it preserves properties for community gardening. At issue is the land bank’s practice of attaching a 30-year mortgage to properties that it gives to garden organizations. The “self-amortizing” mortgages are for the market rate
MoreGarden Supply Hot Spots by Laura Everard Whenever you talk to gardeners, regardless of who they are, where they live and what kind of garden they have, they always have the garden center that they swear by, and they tend to get very “Sharks and Jets” about the whole situation. I don’t claim to have
MoreMade in the Shade by Laura Everard “I can’t grow anything because my garden is too shady.” If I had a dollar for the number of times people told me this, I would have enough money to buy all of the plants they would need to revamp their shade garden! Just because you aren’t living
MoreTiny Farm to Tiny Table by Grid Staff School cafeterias of old are notorious for mushy veggies and fried mystery meats, but students at Friends’ Central School in Wynnewood hope to promote healthful lunch hours with a new year-round food-growing program. Students from nursery school through fifth grade are taught the significance of healthy eating
MorePhotos and illustrations by Marika Mirren How Does Your Garden Grow? by Brion Shreffler Turning the corner of South 10th and Christian streets in Philadelphia, heading north into the Bella Vista neighborhood, a newcomer out on a jog might be caught off guard by the fiercely squawking green parrot taking umbrage at their swift passage.
MoreMary Seton Corboy and Greensgrow continue to set an example
story by Lee Stabert/photos by Jessica Kourkounis
Greensgrow, an urban farm and nursery in kensington, is a superstar of Philadelphia’s sustainability community. Having earned an abundance of recent national and local press, the pioneering farm’s name is always at the ready when conversation turns to the rising
By Char Vandermeer
By mid-August, you probably know what works in your garden and what doesn’t. But fall is falling and seed catalogue season is a long ways away—this can lead to a case of the late summertime blues.
This South Philly gardener goes vertical by scott orwig
Sometimes it’s easy to forget the simplest way to go green: plants. But for city dwellers whose outdoor space consists of a tiny concrete slab or rooftop deck, a lush, outdoor garden seems out of the question. There are plenty of easy ways to green up even
A guide to helping cucumbers and melons get their groove onby Char Vandermeer
If summer were a taste, it would surely be cucumber—or maybe muskmelon. They’re both little bursts of sunshine on the vine. While your planting space may be limited to a few pots or a tiny patch in a community garden, that doesn’t mean
Happy together: Companion planting can increase the yield and the health of your urban gardenby Char Vandermeer
It’s time to dust off those planters, rinse out the watering cans and get some dirt under your nails. If your garden looks anything like mine—a sea of containers atop a South Philly roof—then you’re constantly struggling to maximize
Farming tools by women, for womenby Lee Stabert
Women are pretty amazing and resourceful,” says Ann Adams, one half of the team behind Green Heron Tools, a company designing gardening and farming equipment specifically for women.