Saturday, April 30 at the Hannah House garden was a neighborhood workday and workshop on “Growing Safely in Urban Soil.”
The city Parks and Recreation Department, Department of Public Health, Office of Sustainability and Pennsylvania Horticultural Society were all there to teach and work with the neighbors in the new beds.
It was a busy day with plenty of work to do. Elisa Ruso-Esposito from Parks and Recreation remarked, “We love to see this kind of garden where community people are involved and there is a plan for sustaining the garden.”
Bri Barton, garden manager at Historic Fair Hill, and Jasmine Hamilton from Parks and Recreation, invited neighbors to learn how to grow food safely in their community garden. Sally McCabe from PHS set up a washing station for produce and for hand washing. Sechita Elliott helped bolt the new wooden frames together, while her daughter painted the new Hannah House sign. Children pushed wheelbarrows of topsoil to fill the beds. Hannah Chatterjee from the Office of Sustainability was there handing out free gardening supplies to neighbors, and next-door neighbor Jeffery Terrell weed whacked the garden perimeter. Jondhi Harrell from the Center For Returning Citizens kept kids entertained with face painting and games so the adults could give workshop leaders their full attention.
Bri Barton said, “What a wonderful day. We are going to be out here every Thursday and Saturday, growing amazing crops together this season.”
