Our Mission

Penn Alexander School wishes to create an urban green space, where students and their families can learn sustainable urban gardening techniques.  This garden, with the aid of the community, will provide nourishing fruits and vegetables, as well as offer a place of natural beauty for all to enjoy.

Our Goals

Digging in the dirt

Our current goal is to create a vegetable garden which can be enjoyed by the community.  In order to realize this goal, Penn Alexander would like for families to become involved with the care and upkeep of the garden.  Families who are able to help maintain the garden through out the summer would be offered first pick of the fruits and vegetables produced.

Garden Day May 1 2011

Our Arbor Day celebration in the garden this past Sunday, May 1st was a great success!  About 20 students and parents showed up to WEED WEED WEED… not the most glamorous activity in the garden, but one of the best ways to help our garden GROW!  Check out the brush pile under the trees to see the big pile of weeds we pulled.  One young boy pulled  a  weed with a foot long root!  Now that’s how you do it!

Our energetic families moved a large pile of compost provided by Ms. Dixon to fill the garden beds for her science classrooms’ community garden.  Kids also moved the pile of rocks out from under trees so they would not harm the tree roots with their heavy weight.

After almost two hours of hard labor, we all went over to the shrub garden just south of Penn Alexander’s front door.  There, some of the older kids helped dig a hole for our ARBOR DAY planting of a Viburnum prunifolium or “Blackhaw Viburnum” that is a native understory tree in our region.   It will grow to about 12 feet high and wide to help fill out that space, and it will give the PAS community a beautiful show of spring flowers and fall foliage.

Did you miss it?  No problem, there is so much more to do throughout the spring!  Our next Garden Day will be Sunday, May 22nd from 1 to 4 pm.  Bring your garden gloves!

Our garden is able to grow through the generosity of many individuals and organizations.

• The Pennsylvania Horticultural Society
• U.C.Green
• The Water Department
• The Office of Sustainability at the University of Pennsylvania
• Penn Alexander Home and School
• The Philadelphia Food Trust

The Penn Alexander Edible Garden

Vegetables

• Lettuce
• Radishes
• Peppers
• Tomatoes
• Cucumbers
• Pumpkins
• Peas
• Beans
• Carrots
• Beets

Herbs

• Dill
• Basil
• Sage
• Mustard
• Cilantro
• Parsley

Fruits

• Strawberries
• Serviceberries
• Blueberries
• Raspberries

Past, Present and Future

• What we have done:
• Native plants and trees
• Organic mulch
• Organic gardening
• Drip irrigation
• Created a “habitat garden”, which attracts birds, butterflies and ladybugs

What we are doing:

• Peat mulching
• Using composted soil
• Adding more raised beds
• Creating a compost pile

What we want to do:

• Add rain barrels
• Add a green roof to the shed
• Prune trees (professionally?)
• Re-gravel the pathways
• Buy a compost bin and decomposers

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