Urban Farming at a Historic Germantown Homestead

Over a period of four months, beginning in January 1797, she describes a “productive garden filled with vegetables and fruit trees.”

Wyck Historic House and Gardens in Philadelphia

By Meghan Gelardi Holmes
Rutgers University
May 26, 2011

Excerpts:

This season marks the fifth year of an urban farming experiment at Wyck Historic House and Gardens. The 18th-century homestead, located in the heart of upper Germantown in Philadelphia, has been a museum since the early 1970s. With the help of an extensive collection of artifacts and documents, the house relates three hundred years of history – the daily trials and tribulations of one family of Philadelphia Quakers. Except it hasn’t always been clear who’s listening.

By developing a small urban farm in Germantown, Wyck is providing a crucial service to its neighbors. The Home Farm is both an agricultural and an educational space. The weekly farmer’s market – Fridays throughout the summer (starting this Friday!) if you’d like to stop by and pick up some local produce – is one of the only local options for fresh fruits and vegetables. When I visited last August, women were appraising late-summer tomatoes while their kids waited impatiently to visit the chickens. This neighborhood is particularly in need of such a service; there is no supermarket within walking distance and access to healthy foods is limited. Wyck ensures that the products it sells are accessible to everyone, both by controlling price and by encouraging conversations about creativity in the kitchen. The Home Farm allows the staff to work with the local community to address issues of nutrition and equitable access to fresh foods.

Read the complete article here.

Wyck Historic House and Gardens

1794 – 1814
Caspar Wistar Haines (1762-1801), great, great-grandson of Hans Milan, moved his wife, Hannah Marshal Haines, (1765-1828), and their family to Germantown. His mother, Margaret Wistar Haines, had died in Philadelphia of Yellow Fever during the epidemic the year before and he wished to move his family to a healthier climate. He made quite a few improvements to the property including building a brew house and barn, and updating the house with stucco. The first reference to the garden at Wyck is in letters written by the fifth owner, Hannah, to her son, Reuben. Over a period of four months, beginning in January 1797, she describes a “productive garden filled with vegetables and fruit trees.” This was likely located to the north, or rear, of the house and probably was organized in a typical early Colonial parterre design, perhaps with a fish pond in the center. Her letters also document Caspar’s purchase of 100 fruit trees, using cold frames for seedlings and laying tan bark on the garden paths. The trellises for which Wyck is so well known that cover the south (front) façade of the house were added sometime during this era, probably in the first decade of the 1800s.

See the museum and farm site here.