Good afternoon, Councilpeople, & everyone who took time out of busy schedules & regular work hours to be here this morning.

Thank you for allowing me to testify today. My name is Robyn Mello, & I am here today representing myself as a 4 year resident of District 1, representing Historic Fair Hill, Inc. in North Philly as their Garden Manager & Nature Educator, & representing Philly Food Forests, an all-volunteer group I founded which, in part, works with neighborhoods to start edible gardens & orchards on their blighted, vacant lots. As an equally avid, active, & passionate gardener & organizer, I, & these organizations, oppose Proposed Bills 120916 & 120917 due to the negative effects they will surely have on existing & future community gardens & market farms, &, therefore, community & nutrition, in this city.

I garden with community members across a wide range of ages, cultures, interests, backgrounds, priorities, & educational & economic levels. With Philly Food Forests, Historic Fair Hill, & alone, I am building edible gardens & community in 13 locations in Councilman Squilla’s First, Councilman Clarke’s Fifth, & Councilwoman Quinones-Sanchez’ Seventh Districts. My research shows that at least 10 lots within 4 of these gardens would be considered illegal to garden on should these proposals pass.

Let me paint a picture of these spaces:

Garden 1 consists of 6 vacant lots next to a transition house for women recently released from State Prison. I work with these women & neighbors on the block to produce food they want to eat, provide them with relevant community service, assist them in learning skills which teach discipline, attention to detail, & nurturing life. Many of them cherish their time outside the house, & they can’t wait to start gardens of their own when they are released from the house. One neighbor saved seeds from his peppers, tomatoes, squash, & beans received from Philadbundance so that he could try growing with us. That’s how I started growing food, &–what do you know? It works!

Gardens 2 & 3 are corner lots across the street from each other which have each been supported in past & present by the Philadelphia Mural Arts Program, Pennsylvania Horticultural Society, Philadelphia Orchard Project, & the local Congresswoman. They are maintained mostly by neighboring Puerto Rican families dedicated to keeping them clean & safe, & they are often now the site of community meetings & relaxation time on hot, summer days where neighbors can snack on white raspberries, peaches, & strawberries growing all around. What were they previously? They were drug-selling corners.

Space 4 is a new garden that has won a lot of hearts & stomachs. It is a garden amidst nearly 3 vacant blocks, full of dumping & surrounded by crumbling houses, across from a massive Philadelphia Housing Authority complex. We all call it The Peace Park because we designed it to be a 40-foot diameter peace symbol, easily seen from the PHA building’s highest story windows. In its first season, it has become both a symbol & creator of peace, providing a place for many young children to learn & play, for adults to participate & harvest, for the community to come together for potlucks, live music, & clothing donations, & proving once again that gardens result in less litter. If these proposals pass, rendering community gardening & market farming illegal in CMX-2 zones, communities like those we’re involved in will suffer.

I’m often confused by decisions made by lawmakers stated to be in the best interests of constituents, so I’m finally feeling that my voice needs to be heard here, in hope that my confusion may also cause Council to reexamine its thinking. My questions are these:

1. Why, after so many years & such an outpouring of labor, outreach, & money to create a new zoning code to reflect what this city’s people want, are these bills necessary to pass so quickly after the new code was put in place & so far before the one-year review process that was suggested?

2. If we state as a city that we aspire to be the greenest city in America, & at the same time we are statistically listed as the second hungriest city in the country, why would our elected government officials want to make it more difficult for its citizens to voluntarily green its land & feed is people?

3. When will our government & planners begin to consider the savings rather than revenue generated, the increased financial savings & improved health of people, the lessened pressure on overburdened welfare & medical systems, the decreased crime rates & less tax money spent on policing, & the increased property values & taxes resulting from community gardens when discussing “the highest & best use” of a space for “development”?

If every neighborhood had a lot or two in which interested residents could grow food & the city actually encouraged it, if all zonings allowed community gardens & market farms for at least interim or long-term leasing, if our utility companies provided breaks to residents for rainwater collection & our streets department incentivized residents to create neighborhood composting sites, the development we all want in this city would follow, but with a conscience & resiliency which urban areas truly need if we’re going to survive & thrive.

I don’t have much need for statistics or years of academic study to prove to me the necessity of gardens in densely-populated cities. I see their need every day. But the statistics are there, & the research has been done: gardening & growing food is nothing but positive.

I am the new face of young people moving into Philadelphia, & I intend to continue pouring my time, energy, love, & money into it. My time, energy, & love all go toward growing free food & cultivating free communities. My money comes from doing the same. There are many, many Philadelphians like me–many are here today–& judging by the flow of newcomers from various backgrounds we have show up to our garden activities, there will continue to be more every day. Growing food & cleaning our neighborhoods is not a new thing, & we are not following a fad. We are creating our futures & shaping this city’s. If you want us to stay in this city to be its leaders of tomorrow, I urge you to refrain from passing Bills 120916, 120917, & any future bills limiting urban agriculture.

Whether or not they pass, I know of at least four groups of CMX-2 lots that will continue to function as community gardens next season, & I personally welcome any Councilperson to visit, join in our community, & take home some fresh, free food anytime you’d like.

We had a truly magical workparty at Mercy Edible Park (MEEP) in South Philly on Sunday! All in all, well over 30 people showed up. We started off the day with some old friends coming to visit, then decided, hey, it’s time to harvest some honey! Soooo we did! For the first time, we collected an entire medium super of honey–approximately 40lbs–still leaving the bees with over 100lbs for themselves (they need 60lbs to overwinter). It’s very light in color & exquisitely tasty & messy, just the way we like it. Thanks, Bees!

Afterwards, we weeded & harvested food, weeded & harvested food, ate our potluck’s delights, weeded & harvested more food, cooled off & played around in the fire hydrant, & hung out under our newly donated tent from the Occupy National Gathering folk while some new friends painted a beautiful mural on a grafittied wall behind the lot where we have a 3-year private lease. The garden is truly looking like a forest, though mostly of Jerusalem Artichokes, myriad herbs, tomatoes, & saplings at this point (no canopy yet, but we can see it!), & we’re in love, as per usual.

Around 5pm, when we were all thinking of leaving, one of our volunteers pulled out a PA system & 3 microphones, so we had an impromptu concert in the garden with the rest of the volunteers singing, playing guitar, various drums & rhythm instruments, & a few of the garden’s immediate neighbors coming in to rhyme over the rhythm while all the other neighbors sat around & laughed/clapped/generally enjoyed themselves. Blues-jazz-folk-rap fusion, South Philly style!

With our playing, our intent was to call the rain in because we were all too tired to water, &, well, rain is way better than we are at doing the job anyway. And, boy, did it work (we had no doubts)! Most hid from the deluge by huddling together & laughing under the tent while the guys continued painting, Robyn started planting fall seeds, & a few newcomers kept on digging away at some out-of-control weeds. The experience, commitment, & hilarity was one for the memory books.

Most people eventually braved the rain to have a final toast to a day well spent, & the last to leave left about 11 hours after we first arrived. There was nothing we’d rather have done than share such an incredible day with our Occupy Vacant Lots/Philly Food Forests/MEEP family. Thank you to all who participated, & for those who didn’t make it out, be sure to come to our Brewerytown Peace Park Barbecue & Workparty with Philadelphia Coalition of the Heart on Sunday, August 26th! It’s gonna be another doozy! Also, stay tuned for details on our fall orchard planting in the North Delhi Street megalots.

Love,
OVaL+PFF ♥

Fireflies at Mercy Street

Some things take longer than a month. Some things take longer than a year. Just a month ago, I was wondering where all our food was. We’d been working really hard to plant and keep the garden maintained, and it seemed like all we had to show for it were greens, herbs, pests and struggling saplings. April didn’t feel too food-generative for the Republic of MEEP.

I don’t know much about gardens. I’m just a suburban upper-middle class kid who said no to the lawn lifestyle. As a lawn child, everything beautiful took about a week at most to build or get. It takes awhile to learn to live by garden time.

* * *

Sometimes it feels like you’re plugging away at things forever and making no progress. A month ago, I made the mistake of walking around at night and saw about a bajillion leopard slugs munching on our leaves. One of our apple trees is infected with cottony scale bugs. The harlequin beetles that devastated our brassicas last year are coming back. And the radishes, supposedly one of the earliest spring crops, hadn’t even sprouted yet!

I put on a brave face and didn’t say anything about it – just kept planting, kept weeding and kept visiting the garden to talk to the greens. They told me not to worry, but you know humans. We always think we know best. “What the hell, MEEP.”

Today was different. I hadn’t been to the garden in about a week or two, but in that week, everything had changed.

* * *

Squash from last year is already taking over the lettuce bed. Underneath their broad leaves, telltale spires of romaine-looking leaves shoot their way out of the ground. Bush beans muscle up to the squash plants, wending their way around the thick, spiny vines.

It isn’t just a few lots with some greens and herbs and dead plants. It’s a forest. I don’t even know what’s going on any more.

Little volunteer tomatoes sprout up everywhere in defiance of the soft monoculture tyranny that the jerusalem artichokes are trying to sustain.

Sweet dinosaur kale spreads its teal, bumpy leaves in three separate places.

A cheddar cauliflower just sprouts and buds its yellow, brain-shaped fruit in our newest heart-shaped bed.

The heirlooms I’d planted the other day are well on their way to becoming sauce on the stove and salad in my stomach. Tomatoes in purple, orange, yellow and red will sprout in a couple months.

True, the cilantro was all bolted, but right next door, a new, giant echinacea plant mingles with the mint.

Salad greens I’ve never even seen grow next to the brassicas. Olive green leaves are variegated with purple veins. The radishes bloom and crest red above the soil. Just two months ago, I could hold about two hundred seeds in one hand. Now a bunch of three, held by the leaves, make a gluttonous snack. My burps still have a piquant aftertaste.

* * *

The neighborhood kids noticed the firefly first, flashing neon above the former mixed greens patch where little rust-colored lettuce has taken root. Fireflies lay eggs that hatch into glow-worms, which feed upon slugs and help keep those populations in check. That’s the real reason we want to have fireflies; though the magical visual for the neighborhood kids to connect with our garden doesn’t hurt!

Glow-worms are the larval form of fireflies. They live for about two years, then turn into fireflies, which have about twenty days to find mates, lay eggs and die.

The males fly around while the females signal to them from underneath plants in wet, shady spaces to lay eggs. The males flash and match their signal to the females, which leads to mating and the hatching of glow-worms.

We all looked around and saw at least three more fireflies around the wide-brimmed squash plants and thick garlic profusion. The fact that several male flies hung around our space meant females were hidden where we couldn’t see. They approved of it as a space to raise their young.

* * *

Fireflies are finding mates in the garden. The insect kingdom approves of our efforts. It might take a few years for the glow-worms and the slugs to reach a balanced population, but we’re building the rest of our lives here. Us and the Photuris pennsylvanica together. I think this is going to last.