Archive Press
YR 2008
Post on archinect.com
September 2008
Yet another orientation entry...
On Saturday we were invited to participate in one of several tours of Philadelphia. The tour that I chose was given by City Planning professor Domenic Vitiello. Domenic's current research involves community gardening and urban farming. We started out from Meyerson Hall and caught the #10 trolley out through West Philly. From the trolley stop we walked down through a Hope VI housing project. The new townhouses of the Lucien E. Blackwell Homes replace Mill Creek Apartments, a mix of low-rise and high-rise buildings that were designed by Louis Kahn in 1950.
Link to Article:
http://www.archinect.com/schoolblog/entry.php?id=79184_0_39_0_C
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Sweet on Bees: Why are bees in this urban neighborhood thriving?
An August 14, 2008 column in the Philadelphia City Paper describes Mill Creek's
beekeeping operation. Check it out.
Link to Article:
http://citypaper.net/articles/2008/08/14/sweet-on-bees
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ATTRA News features Mill Creek in special urban agriculture edition
August 2008
ATTRA (The National Sustainable Agricultural Information Service) features urban farming in their August issue. You'll find lots of great stories and resources about urban farming there, including a listing for Mill Creek Farm.
Link to Article:
http://attra.org/newsletter/attranews_0708.html
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Philadelphia Weekly Features Pictures & Quotes from Mill Creek
May 21, 2008
"We try to grow a variety, especially things that are popular in the neighborhood but aren't available affordably or fresh. We sell produce at a farmers market, Mariposa food market and some smaller cafes, and donate to food cupboards and a women's shelter. People are excited to buy stuff that's grown in the neighborhood without chemicals. A lot of seniors use their farmers market coupons with us, which is great. We're in our third growing season. The other co-director, Jade Walker, and I were working for the Urban Nutrition Initiative and put a proposal forward to start a farm. We grow vegetables, fruits and herbs. The summer I got out of high school I got a job at a farm and I've been farming ever since. Jade has been farming for more than 10 years and learned how through experience rather than schooling. The two of us are the only paid staff, but we couldn't do it without all the volunteer help."
Link to Article:
http://www.philadelphiaweekly.com/arts-and-culture/38468034.html
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Soil Survivor
The City Paper Sends Out a Reporter to Work the Land: City Paper writer Sam Tremble volunteers at Mill Creek, then sits down to write about it. On their page Here
A tangled heap of bikes chained and locked to more bikes marks the entrance to Mill Creek Farm. There's no silo, no tractors, not even a weather vane. The land, about an acre and a half on the 4900 block of Brown, sits next to the houses on the street with no more separation than a chain-link fence lined with fruit trees. I had at least expected some sort of quaint country dirt path, but it's just part of the neighborhood, just like the abandoned lots I rode past on the way over. House. House. Farm! House.
Link to Article:
http://citypaper.net/articles/2008/05/08/soil-survivor
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Things That Matter to People Who Matter
Curator of Puppet Uprising pays tribute to Mill Creek in the City Paper. Check out the December 13th edition of Philadelphia City Paper's Culture Shock column.
Mill Creek Farm
Link to Article:
http://citypaper.net/articles/2007/12/13/culture-shock
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Farming the Concrete Jungle
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Mill Creek mentioned in new In These Times article: In its August 24 article, "Farming the Concrete Jungle,"
In These Times authors explore the growth of urban farming across the country, and mention Mill Creek's
work in Philadelphia. Check it out.
Link to Article:
http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/3297/farming_the_concrete_jungle/
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The Trip to Bountiful
Urban farming
On the other side of the country, on a formerly abandoned lot in West Philadelphia, Jade Walker and Johanna Rosen, both 27, are growing produce and selling it to local residents at dirt-cheap prices.
Both Walker and Rosen are former employees of the Urban Nutrition Initiative (UNI), a project of the University of Pennsylvania that teaches children in the public schools about nutrition and wellness. When the two women decided they wanted to reach more community members and grow more crops than they could in the school gardens, they applied for a grant from the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection to start Mill Creek Farm.
The farm’s mission is twofold: to improve access to nutritious foods, and to promote sustainable resource use by growing and distributing produce and by demonstrating ecological methods of living.
Located in a low-income, predominantly African-American neighborhood, the farm shares an acre and a half with an established community garden. The land that wasn’t being used by the garden was filled with garbage, weeds, and drug activity, but the soil wasn’t contaminated. “We didn’t have to do any remediation,” says Rosen. “We just put in mushroom compost.”
In the summer of 2006, the farm’s first growing season, Walker, Rosen, and the few hundred volunteers who stopped by to lend a hand grew 50 varieties of fruit, vegetables, and herbs, giving some of it away and selling some from their on-site market. “Okra was our best seller,” says Rosen enthusiastically. “The farm is right on the corner; it’s a very visible site, and we would sell out of it even before our market opened.”
Link to Article:
http://www.culinate.com/articles/features/The+trip+to+bountiful?page=1&pageSize=1
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NPR "Justice Talking" Ingrid Lakey interviews MCF
Co-Director Johanna Rosen
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Link to Article:
http://www.justicetalking.org/ShowPage.aspx?ShowID=586
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Justice Talking Interview with Johanna Rosen
NPR's Justice Talking sent producer Ingrid Lakey out to Mill Creek Farm to talk to Johanna Rosen.
Listen to the interview!
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YR 2006
The Plot Thickens: A West Philly farm brings nutrition and
environmentalism to the inner city.
A wonderful story from Philadelphia Weekly (July 19, 2006) profiling a West Philly farm (guess who) that brings nutrition and environmentalism to the inner city.
By Jesse Smith
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Link to Article:
http://www.philadelphiaweekly.com/news-and-opinion/the_plot_thickens-38417249.html