Philadelphia Parks & Recreation’s 2017 Community Propagation Program
By Arielle Narva, Farm Philly Propagation Specialist
2017 was the second year Philadelphia Parks & Recreation partnered with the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society to run a Community Propagation Program at the Fairmount Park Horticulture Center in West Fairmount Park. More than 30 organizations, farms, small businesses, and community gardens rented over 55 tables in one of the Horticulture Center’s production greenhouses, and grew tens of thousands of plants from seed, to be grown, planted, sold, and eaten throughout every region of the city.
It is a unique program, uniting Philadelphia growers in one of the City’s historic public spaces to collaborate, share seeds and knowledge, and get a head start on the growing season.
To showcase the beauty and variety of the farms and gardens growing plants in the propagation program, I visited four of the participating sites.
1. Warrington Community Garden, 47th & Warrington in West Philadelphia
Warrington Community Garden was founded in 1973 and permanently preserved by the Neighborhood Gardens Trust in 1992. The garden is comprised of 62 lots on a 27,799-square-foot site in a residential neighborhood. Gardeners Mary Wallman and Alfred Giosa gave me a tour of the beautiful space. They, along with a few other gardeners, spend countless hours in the Horticulture Center propagating seedlings to share among all the plots, as well as to plant in the City Harvest plot which is all grown for donation.
Savoy cabbage, one of the nearly 50 varieties of crops cultivated by the Warrington Community gardeners!
2. Germantown Kitchen Garden, 215 E. Penn Street in Germantown
Farmer and business owner Amanda Staples runs her half-acre farm and nursery in Germantown. As a one-woman business, growing in the Community Propagation Program has quadrupled the amount of seedlings she can cultivate during the winter months, both for growing on her farm and for sale. The Germantown Kitchen Garden hosts a weekly farm stand every Saturday, 9am-1pm. The farm stand sells organic vegetables and fruits grown on the farm, as well as a variety of seedlings and other featured local products.
Amanda Staples standing among her beautifully trellised cherry tomatoes, seeded in the program.
A row of happy cucumbers.
Amanda’s nursery plants lining the walkway to her farm.
3. Shepard’s Farm, The Schuylkill Center in Roxborough
Andrew Olsen is the flower farmer behind Shepard’s Farm, a beautiful half-acre organic flower farm. Cultivating annual flowers is a long process that requires seeds to be started in February and March, as well as consistent warm temperatures for the seeds to germinate. For Andrew, the program has allowed him to increase his flower production. The flowers are sold to local florists.
One entire plot of Andrew’s farm is dahlias!
A beautiful stand of snapdragons, cultivated in the program.
4. Vietlead, East Camden, New Jersey
Vietlead is a community organization that serves the Vietnamese community in Camden, New Jersey, and Philadelphia, which focuses on intergenerational building through leadership development, community engagement, culture and arts, and health promotion work. Lan Dinh is Vietlead’s Farm & Food Sovereignty Projects Director and utilizes the Community Propagation Program to cultivate a variety of crops for the organization’s Resilient Roots Farm. The program is especially helpful for growing the organization’s cultural crops, such as bitter melon (growing on a 20 foot chain-link fence) and many herbs and specific varieties of hot and sweet peppers that need consistent warm temperatures and the protection of the controlled environment of the greenhouse.
An elder instructs high school summer interns on how to build a trellis for the cucumbers, and they construct it together.
A row of thriving eggplant.
Carrots, strawberries, and a huge line of rain barrels for conserving water.
Bitter melon.
Registration for the 2018 growing season will open in January. Until then, be sure to check out all these amazing farms and organizations, and visit the historic Horticulture Center and beautiful display houses open seven days a week from 9am-3pm, year-round.
