“Don’t write about me,” says Gina Humphreys with a laugh. The farmer behind Urban Girls Produce is a bit shy, but she gets excited when the focus shifts to her business, and the various vegetables she and her team are cultivating on four acres at the Schuylkill Center for Environmental Education.
MoreUrban farmer and MacArthur Grant recipient Will Allen on the importance of greens, worms and moreby Lee Stabert
Everything about Will Allen is big. The pro basketball player turned urban agriculture iconoclast has hands like baseball mitts, and arms like tree trunks. His normal uniform—jeans, baseball hat, hooded sweatshirt with the sleeves removed—only serves to emphasize
5 mins read
Prisoners and community gardeners help feed Philadelphia's hungry by Natalie Hope McDonald
Adjacent to a soccer field in fairmount park, in view of what’s left of the Delaware River’s wetlands, the Philadelphia Prison System operates eight correctional facilities for men and women along State Road.
6 mins read
Edible Schoolyard: A Universal Ideaby Alice WatersChronicle; $24.95When Alice Waters used to drive by the Martin Luther King Jr. middle school near her neighborhood in Berkeley, CA, she thought it was deserted. The schoolyard looked abandoned, overgrown with weeds and cracked concrete. After mentioning the use—or rather, misuse—of vacant land in a newspaper article about
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Weaver's Way helps start high school farmsby Andrew ThompsonOn a May afternoon at Martin Luther King High School in East Germantown, several students tilled compost onto one of the many mounds being readied for sowing. Along with their stewards from nearby Weaver’s Way Co-op and the Philadelphia Orchard Project, they had just finished harvesting some
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Mill Creek Farm sets a standard for sustainable farmingby Will DeanBat Cave #2. That’s the first thing you can easily make out about the main farm building at West Philly’s nonprofit Mill Creek Farm. It’s painted in yellow on a piece of metal that juts out of a low, glimmering building in the middle of
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A local teen finds success by growing healthy foodby Dana HenryThe school bell rings and teenagers fill the entrance halls of University City High School. Many are running and some are calling out to their friends, relieved from a long day of classes. A young man apologizes to the woman at the front desk who
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Saving rainwater for your own usesby Will DeanTo comply with federal regulations governing combined storm water and sewage overflow (where lots of rain can wash sewage into local watersheds), the Philadelphia Water Department is trying something new.
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How to start heirloom veggies from seedby Phil ForsythSo you’ve been enjoying those orange, yellow, purple, green, striped, two-tone, cherry, plum, pear-shaped and downright unusual tomatoes from the farmer’s market. Then you get your hands on a seed catalog and the names call to you: Black From Tula, Golden Sunray, Aunt Ruby’s German Green. So
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The Philadelphia Orchard Project is harvesting edible agriculture one vacant lot at a timeby Natalie Hope McDonaldFrom Kensington’s Cambria Orchard to Chester Avenue’s Squirrel Hill and the Martin Luther King High School Farm on West Oak Lane, fresh fruits and vegetables are being harvested in once-vacant, crime-ridden lots. It’s all part of a massive nutrition
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