Green acres

By Lauren Fritsky
Times Staff Writer

Paul Glover munches on a bright green apple as he stands surrounded by sprouting strawberry plants in a garden patch in South Philadelphia.
Two years ago, accessing the site would have required him to wade through waist-high weeds and hopscotch around broken bottles and garbage. Though the garden sits miles from the Northeast, it’s important because Glover wants to replicate it throughout the city.
"We have so much vacant land," he said, tossing the apple core back into the garden. "(It’s) higher and better use and for the next several decades will be generating food."
Through his non-profit Philly Orchard Project, Glover wants to transform the city’s remaining 40,000, vacant lots — about 3,000 of which are in the Northeast — into similar green patches. He founded the group in the spring to help identify and acquire land that can be developed into permanent gardens.
The group’s mission involves planting orchards to provide healthy food for free or at low cost, create jobs, stimulate related business, reduce crime, increase summer cooling and make space for beauty and play throughout the city. Glover points to cities like Austin and Boston as models for growing Philadelphia a little greener.
POP hopes to organize orchards in a variety of ways, including forests, neighborhood gardens, edible parks and non-profit urban farms. The group also wants to bring peace and memorial groves to communities grappling with pervasive crime.
"How many murders have been committed under an apple tree?" asked Glover.
Glover wants to acquire the land through donations, fund-raisers, grants or easements from landowners. After the initial plantings, he’ll leave it up to the neighborhoods maintaining the gardens to decide if they want to offer free produce, a distribution/sale component or run them as community-based farms.
"For me, it’s about expanding the local food supply," said POP president Domenic Vitiello, who teaches city planning at the University of Pennsylvania.
Other city groups, such as Philadelphia Green, which is run through the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society, also helps groups clean up blighted land and turn it into edible gardens. Glover wants to work with such organizations to achieve the overall mission of bringing beauty and fresh produce to communities that need it most.
The South Philadelphia patch is POP’s first orchard site. United Communities Southeast Philadelphia, a United Way Agency, worked on the garden for two years before POP stepped in to help. The gardeners plan to plant peach trees and a pumpkin patch next.
POP will work on planting orchards in West Philadelphia, Strawberry Mansion and Kensington this fall. Glover has also been in touch with members of the Friends of Pennypack Park to discuss ways in which the groups can work together.
Though he wants to see the city become as green as possible, Glover does not intend to push the orchard plan on neighborhoods.
"We will work with who is ready to begin," he said.
While he’s dabbled in many occupations, it’s safe to call Glover a career community organizer. He ran his own currency printing company in Ithaca, N.Y. and has twice run for political office — once as mayor of Ithaca in 2003 and again as president of the United States in 2004, when he received the Green Party nomination in four states.
In addition to POP, Glover advocates the Health Democracy movement trying to establish PhilaHealthia, a health co-op that gives emergency health insurance to subscribers.
Volunteers interested in helping POP need not be green thumbs. Individuals are needed to help clear the land, dig holes or donate resources. The group operates mostly on donations and meets for potluck dinners throughout the city once a month. ••
For more information, call Glover at 215-805-8330 or visit www.healthdemocracy.org/pop.html
Reporter Lauren Fritsky can be reached at 215-354-3038 or lfritsky@phillynews.com