Edible History: Growing a Neighborhood

Community gardens have long thrived in the Mill Creek neighborhood in West Philadelphia. This photo, taken by architect and photographer Franklin D. Edmunds in 1906, shows a vacant-lot garden on the corner of 48th and Aspen Streets. As always in mid-July, it’s all hands on deck in the garden.

Walk through the neighborhood today and you’ll see that growing local food is still a prominent activity here. More than 30 members tend to their plots in the Aspen Farms Community Garden at 49th St. and Aspen. It’s a refuge protected by the Neighborhood Gardens Trust in the midst of construction and housing development.