A Fruitful Partnership: A Strawberry Community Orchard at Woodford Mansion in East Fairmount Park

By Martha Moffat


In 2008, the Woodford Mansion, the Philadelphia Orchard Project (POP), and the East Park Revitalization Alliance (EPRA) began a collaborative project to plant the first fruit modern trees at Woodford Mansion in East Fairmount Park. The orchard is currently maintained by the East Park Revitalization Alliance (EPRA) and includes dozes of fruit and nut trees, a berry garden, a pollinator garden and an herb garden. These gardens serve the residents of the Strawberry Mansion neighborhood, providing fresh fruit and educational programming.

(Pictured at top right: an aerial view of Woodford Mansion)

History of Woodford

Woodford Mansion was built in 1756 as a summer home. It is a National Historic Landmark and has been operated by the Naomi Wood Trust as a House Museum since 1928. The Naomi Wood Collection of antiques is displayed at Woodford Mansion.

Historically, there had always been an orchard at Woodford, as mentioned in an advertisement from 1769 for the sale of the property (pictured below). It seemed only natural to bring that back to the area in 2008.

Challenge: How Can Woodford Mansion Help and Engage Our Neighboring Community?

When POP received a donation to plant a new orchard to benefit neighborhoods in Philadelphia, the Strawberry Mansion neighborhood and Woodford Mansion was the logical choice.

Strawberry Mansion is one of the most challenged neighborhoods in the City of Philadelphia. The area is a food desert with high poverty, a high crime rate, and many health issues.

(Pictured above is the plan for Phase 1 of the orchard and pollinator garden.)

Since the orchard was planted, POP, EPRA and Woodford Mansion co-host numerous community events there, including strawberry, apple and peach festivals. 2018 marked the 10th annual Apple Festival! (Pictured bottom right: members of the community pick strawberries in the orchard at Woodford Mansion.)

All members of the community are welcome to visit the orchard. Children from the Mander Recreation Center visit the site during all four seasons. During the winter season, children from the Mander Playground make ornaments for Woodford’s tree and pay a visit to hang them and get a special tour of the orchard.

Plans are also in the works for a Fair-amount Food Forest to be planted under the trees outside the fence for the Strawberry Mansion community. Stay tuned!

Martha Moffat is a Penn State Extension Philadelphia Master Gardener and the Site Manager at Woodford Mansion.

Pineapple Sage

By Stephanie Rukowicz

For the past two years I have been in charge of planting and maintaining the herb bed at my community garden. The varieties are typically predetermined by a group vote at the beginning of the season. This year, in addition to the usual suspects, a new garden member suggested pineapple sage (Salvia elegans).

He planted a 3” pot in early spring and the plant grew as quickly as he described. In just one season this sage grew quite large, taking over its corner of the bed and spilling out into the walking path. Unlike common sage that flowers in Spring, this sage variety flowers at the end of the season (photo taken in mid-October).

Pineapple sage grown from 3" pot in Spring, now enormous and flowering end of season (mid-October).

The tubular red flowers are quite decorative and delicious. I can see why some gardeners use them in salads. The community garden member who planted this salvia recommended using its leaves for tea. I brewed a cup using 4-5 leaves in boiled water, steeping about five minutes. I find it quite tasty.  

Herbal tea made from pineapple sage leaves. Brewed and consumed hot.

What a great idea this author had to use it in a container planting. With pretty foliage all summer long, and then beautiful red flowers give the container Fall interest (and Fall food for pollinators) as well.

The extension information available through Penn State also note another use: in ornamental wreaths. The foliage would be fragrant and beautiful.

Uses:

• Culinary
• Cut Flowers
• Containers (foliage throughout summer, flowers in fall)
• Pollinator food in Fall (hummingbird, honey bees, butterflies)
• Ornamental wreaths
• Dry to use for potpourri 
• Teas 

Bonnie Plants answers the question:

“Is pineapple sage used the same way as my other sage?

Pineapple sage and common sage are related. They are both salvias. Here the resemblance ends. They don’t look alike or grow alike, and they certainly do not taste the same. Consequently, their uses are different. While common sage is well known for its contribution to sausage, poultry dishes, and herb blends, pineapple sage is appealing in fruit and sweet dishes. It has a pineapple-like scent. In addition, the autumn flowers give it an ornamental role in the garden.”

Community Gardens in Salta, Argentina

By Linda and Sandy Grimwade

We are spending 6 weeks doing volunteer work in the city of Salta in northwest Argentina. It is a beautiful old colonial Spanish city with about 700,000 inhabitants. Situated at an altitude of about 4,500 feet in the foothills of the Andes, and only 90 miles from the Tropic of Capricorn, the city has a wonderful climate of mostly warm dry days and pleasantly cool nights. It is springtime, and trees are coming into leaf, bulbs are flowering and the barrows on street corners are full of wonderfully flavorful strawberries. Despite this favorable climate and pleasant situation, there are significant areas of the city where signs of poverty and poor nutrition are clearly visible.

Sandy giving a lesson on plants in Spanish

Under the auspices of the city government, we have started a project to introduce education about the benefits of home gardening, and to build small vegetable gardens in “comedores” -- food kitchens run by local people to give children in poor areas at least one good meal per day. The Argentine diet is heavy on protein, carbohydrate, and, increasingly, sugar, but fruits and vegetables are quite expensive, and there is little tradition of growing your own. Armed with materials from Philadelphia Master Gardeners and the Harvest for Health program (thanks to Jackie Simon), Sandy, with Linda’s help gave his first of 4 talks, in Spanish, to about 20 children and 12 parents in one of the comedores a few days ago. We then helped the excited kids to plant tomato, pepper and squash seeds in potting soil-filled cups, started cleaning out an area about 3 feet by 9 feet and building a low wall for a raised bed. 

Children with their pots of seeds

Over the next few weeks we are planning more short talks on caring for a small vegetable garden and will plant seeds of herbs, beans, chard and other greens, as well as setting out the seedlings once they have grown. We hope we will leave here with small gardens growing at several of the comedores and a group of enthusiastic helpers to keep them going. We are also planning to introduce some tasty vegetable recipes.

It is gratifying to be able to share our Master Gardener knowledge with parents and children who are so enthusiastic and willing to become involved.

Making garden space from compacted soil.

By Patricia Beynan

Our community garden members chose to either make raised beds and fill them with topsoil, compost, and peat moss,  or to dig out the compacted soil to a depth of  about 18 inches, sift the soil that was removed, breaking up the clay, and mixing it with compost and peat moss.  The garden managers kindly provided a a few loads of compost from Fairmont Park for our use, available from a big pile at the edge of the garden.

I found both options daunting.  I was on my own in creating the 12 x 12 garden from soil that had been paved over for nearly 100 years.  It was not only compacted to rock solid status, but it also was covered with the gravel layer that had been under the asphalt and chunks of the newly removed asphalt.  The garden steering committee offered help and advice, and provided giant screens to use for sifting.  

The dig out option involved the pick and shovel approach, and the raised beds were a building project.   I wanted another option, and as I was removing the top layer of chunks, and watching the pick and shovel folks strain and groan I decided I would find some middle ground.  After the asphalt was gone I imperfectly raked the gravel to the edges to make paths between my plot and the neighbors.  I decided the remaining gravel was good for drainage, and started wheelbarrowing in compost.  Over the course of several sessions I brought about 15 loads over from the rapidly diminishing pile.  I raked that into the top layer the gravel clay surface and decided I could work with that.  

I got a few more loads of compost and dumped them at one end of my plot.  Now it was time to plant.  I had three kinds of  lettuce, red and green cabbage,  eggplant, peppers and tomatoes in little pots, and cucumber, peas, cantaloupe, carrots, and green beans in seeds.  My plan evolved as I worked.  I dug through the compost layer, then put the hose on the clay for a minute, making an instant pond.  After it soaked in I dug out about eight inches, mixed that clay with the compost, put half back in, then my seedling, then more of the mix, tamping it down.  The improved area was only about 6 inches in diameter. Would it work?

Worked like a charm.  I could barely keep up with the output of my spot amended soil.  Everything flourished, and my only failure was cantaloupe, but that may have had more to do with the monsoons of August than the soil.  

This year I'm adding more compost, digging new holes to spot amend, and rotating the plant locations.  I have high hopes.