Urban gardens provide food to Philadelphia residents

Small, community gardens have sprouted up across the city, often where houses once stood.

Staffed by small groups of volunteers, these gardens offer healthy food at modest prices, at a time when low-income residents need the help.

What doesn't get used by residents is donated to food pantries and other charities that help the poor.

This featured garden, a half-acre site called Mill Creek Farm, feeds hundreds of residents, many of them elderly and on government assistance. It sits on a lot where houses had been built on unstable fill.

"Decades ago, an underground creek slowly swallowed the fill. Foundations cracked. Sinking houses were abandoned, then demolished. Weeds and trash took over. Years went by.

"Hard rains flooded the land. Mill Creek overflowed the storm sewers, carrying urban contaminants into the Schuylkill [River]."

Thanks to Deb Woodell