Grid Magazine

#003 April 2009/Food/gardening/Guides

How-To: Urban Transplants

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

April 1, 2009

2 mins read

#003 April 2009/Farming/Food

Seeds of Change

Fixing our broken food systemby Paul GloverEverything we hope to achieve, have and enjoy would be shaken from our grasp without the miracle of seeds unfolding into food, far from where we live. Are you on the road to success? Take food with you. Whether we eat from silver plates or tin cups, three times

April 1, 2009

2 mins read

#003 April 2009/Food

Eat Local: New Horizons

Upscale vegan eats warm your stomach and conscienceby Will DeanWith the rush towards eating locally, it’s surprisingly easy to forget about the original “ethical” eating choice that for hundreds of years has attracted people like Ben Franklin, Charlotte Bronte, Albert Einstein and, of course, me. While Kate Jacoby, co-owner and pastry chef of upscale vegan

April 1, 2009

2 mins read

#003 April 2009/Food/GridPhilly/Politics

Book Review: Food Politics

Food Politics: How the Food Industry Influences Nutrition and Healthby Marion NestleUC Press, 2003; $16.95When you bite into an apple, you’re probably not considering the laws and regulations, complex legal relationships and huge amounts of money that go into promoting food products. On your behalf, though, Marion Nestle is.

April 1, 2009

1 min read

#003 April 2009/Community/Farming/Food/gardening

Power Plants

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

April 1, 2009

4 mins read

#003 April 2009/Community/Farming/Food/gardening

Cover Story: Hold Your Turf

How Haddington used guerrilla gardening to transform its vacant lots, and why the city should encourage everyone to do the sameby Haley LoramSomeone left a busted couch at the edge of the Conestoga Children’s Garden, directly under the “No Dumping” sign. Skip Wiener, who tends to the network of gardens in the West Philly neighborhood

April 1, 2009

8 mins read

#002 March 2009/Community/Public Health

Environmental Effects

Patients as Person, City as Healer?by Nathaniel PopkinIn the earliest days of the Center for Community Partnerships at Penn, a project I was a part of for a few years in the mid-’90s, we considered (but never executed) a “misery/happiness index” for West Philadelphia. The index was an idea of the historian Lee Benson, the

March 1, 2009

3 mins read

#002 March 2009/Food

A Simpler Time

Southwark offers a connection to local foodby Will Dean and Ashley JeromeWhen you walk in the front door of Southwark, it feels a little like you’re going back in time, which makes sense. Southwark got its name from an 18th century district of the city and it fits because preserving history, including a tangible connection

March 1, 2009

2 mins read

#002 March 2009/Circular Economy

Book Review: the Ecology of Commerce

The Ecology of Commerce: A Declaration of Sustainabilityby Paul HawkenHarper Collins, 1993, $19.96Paul Hawken, author, entrepreneur and activist, debunks the tired notion that business and the environment are somehow at odds. “Common wisdom holds that ecologists worry about nature while economists are concerned with human beings,” Hawken explains. “But economists are in fact taking care

March 1, 2009

1 min read

#002 March 2009/Community

Free Flow

An abandoned building becomes a hub for social activism in West Philadelphiaby Natalie Hope McDonaldJust off the Number 10 Green Line, west of the sprawling Penn and Drexel campuses and trendy restaurants, past the tiny street corner bodegas and dimly lit bars, a group of aspiring social activists saw something special in an abandoned building

March 1, 2009

2 mins read

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