By: Amy Hopf, Digital Content Associate

Farm Philly supports over 60 urban agriculture projects on Philadelphia Parks & Recreation land, including orchards, vegetable and fruit production, youth education gardens, inter-generational gardens, community gardens, and market farms. With the return of warm weather, the program has had a busy month! Check out what our staff and partners have been up to.

Bartram’s Garden

Parks & Rec’s Farm Philly program has partnered with the Sankofa Community Farm at Bartram’s Garden to support Junior Farmers gardens at two locations: James Finnegan Playground and Francis Myers Recreation Center. Managers of the Sankofa Farm and teens in their high school internship program worked with Farm Philly to prepare these gardens for the season.

The after-school program kids and teens worked together to plant the garden, planting tomatoes, peppers, dragon’s tongue beans, and many other veggies. Ms. Stephanie, the after-school teacher at James Finnegan, was out helping plant and was looking forward to making a map with the kids to track where everything was planted.

Emily Street Growing Homes Garden

Farm Philly is rebuilding the garden at the Emily Street Growing Homes Garden in South Philly. The garden was started by Nationalities Service Center as a garden space for refugees coming to Philly through their programs.

The gardeners are mostly Karen and Bhutanese families who use gardens to grow culturally relevant food for their families and community. The garden has been supported by Parks & Rec, as well as the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society. The garden has been around for 10 years and was in need of some love and repair.

PowerCorpsPHL spent three days working with Farm Philly to build new garden beds, fill them with compost from the Fairmount Park Recycling Center, and spread wood chips around the garden area. The new garden was ready in time to be planted with spring and summer crops for the season! Phase two will hopefully start in the fall, after the growing season, and will better utilize the current growing space that has 60+ plots.

Carousel House Farm CSA

Carousel House Farm has launched its first ever Community-supported Agriculture (CSA) program. With a CSA, a consumer pays a fee upfront in exchange for a weekly supply of fresh produce or flowers from a farmer throughout the growing season. CSA’s allow people to know where their food comes from, along with supporting local, sustainable agriculture.

This year, Carousel House Farm has 28 CSA members receiving vegetables and 9 CSA members receiving flowers. During the spring, members received delicious shares, full of springtime vegetables, like kale, lettuce, radishes, and sugar snap peas. Soon enough, the flower share will begin, and members will receive a large, fresh, hand-picked bouquet of flowers once a week.

Carousel House Farm is based at Carousel House Recreation Center, in West Fairmount Park. Signing up for the CSA supports the operation of the farm, as well as the programming and food donations within the Carousel House community and the surrounding Parkside neighborhood.

Community Propagation Program

The Community Propagation Program, which builds communication and strength between the 18 community gardens in Philadelphia, rented 60 greenhouse tables to farmers, gardeners, nonprofits, and small businesses located throughout the city this spring.

Program participants grew a wide variety of plants in the greenhouse, including flowers, vegetables, herbs, perennials, fruit trees, and ferns. Many of the gardeners expressed that they enjoy the program not only because it provides them with an opportunity to get a jump on the growing season, but also because it allows them to meet people from all over the city who are working in the field of urban farming and gardening.