Want to fight hunger? Plant a garden right now

In all the conversations about Philly’s "food scene,” equity and urban gardening are finally getting the time they deserve. In June, City Council President Kenyatta Johnson announced the intention to create a Food and Nutrition Security Coordination Office in Philly based on recommendations from his Food and Nutrition Security Task Force. 

Composed of high-ranking (mostly male) executives of large charities, the task force spent weeks coming up with recommendations to fight hunger across the city. The areas they focused on were governance and accountability, immediate stabilization and resident access, food production and economic systems, and health, education, and human development. 

Though we don’t know much yet – and outreach to the City Council was not answered – the most interesting part of the plan is the promise to implement Philly’s Urban Agriculture Program. 

That program, commissioned in 2019, promised to make land ownership more accessible for Black and brown growers, and provide more areas of the city access to freshly grown food. Certainly equitable produce will be a topic of discussion for the task force, since execs from Food Trust, SHARE, and Sharing Excess are all part of the group. 

But seeing a bunch of executives put together a slide deck doesn’t make me feel better about hungry neighbors. It's hard to take these plans seriously when you see how much money is spent on tourism while watching mutual aid groups who literally hand food to people lose funding and scramble for basic resources every day. I'm there when people come up to us and beg for extras to take with them, or come back on a produce line to grab just one more vegetable to take home. Every week I spend my own money, and ask the community if they're able to give, because keeping resources within our neighborhoods has become paramount. So forgive me if PDFs about "meeting people where they are" falls a little flat.

What has made me feel better, though, is seeing people plant their own food around the city. Whether in their own plots, by seed bombing, or in container, there's an ecosystem of collaboration brewing. But, let's start small.

In my own tiny plot of land, with just a dash of morning sun, I’ve been able to successfully grow three types of small tomatoes, a handful of herbs, green peppers, figs, aloe, kale, and edible flowers. For inspiration on how to maximize my space, I visited Longwood Gardens. The 1,000+ acres of the gardens and greenhouses are all incredible, but I am particularly obsessed with their ornamental kitchen garden, where produce for the 1906 restaurant is grown (supplemented by nearby farms). 

I’ve interviewed Longwood’s senior horticulturist Alex Correia more than once for articles about the menu creation at 1906 (see the July issue of Philly Mag!) but on my latest visit I had questions about what I could add to my garden right now to maximize the potential to feed myself and my neighbors. 

Here are five edible plants you can grow in the next few weeks.  

• Phacelia, known as “bee’s friend,” is obviously a great idea to plant to create an ecosystem that will attract pollinators. However, the leaves of the plant are also edible. In Philly’s growing region, zone 7b, if you plant in late August or September, Phacelia will create shallow roots, go dormant over winter, and show up again in April. 
• Breadseed Poppy creates a nutty-flavored seed that can be used in cooking, and blooms a beautiful blush color that adds a rainbow to your garden. In zone 7b, plant this flower in late summer on loose soil. 
• Yellow mustard is a cold-weather plant that can be planted in late summer for winter greens. It thrives with full sun and drainage. 
• The late summer heat is perfect for cucumbers, so if you’ve been holding off, grab a pot and start them now for fall cucumber meals. 
• Kale can be planted in the late summer in our zone, and thrives with full sun throughout the autumn. It can be planted in window pots too. 

In all the recommendations made by the task force – and I do believe we need policy to fix food equity – I hope they remember that the ability to grow our own food puts a resource back into our own hands, providing community stability and power. 

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A post shared by Annemarie Dooling (@travelinganna)