Koren Martin
At a time when food costs are rising and many people feel disconnected from their neighbors and from nature, one group in Germantown is bringing small groups of people together to share tips on growing your own food. My co-host Amati Braxton explains that participants also get their hands dirty helping out in one another’s gardens.
Amadee Braxton
A little over a year ago, I bought a house in Germantown in Northwest Philadelphia. It has a large yard brimming with possibility, but where to begin? Where should I put raised beds to grow food? How should I deal with the black raspberry bushes that were out of control? Were those vines with the white flowers invasive? I had so many ideas, so much to do, and so many unanswered questions. Then I came across a group that runs a gardening learning circle in Germantown, and I joined to get answers to some of those questions. I met up with the founder of the Learning Circle in her garden.
Celeste Preston
I was always a child that loved to be outside, so you could find me playing with worms, playing with insects, picking up birds, and just studying the land. My name is Celesete Preston, and I am a organizer for Great, which stands for the Germantown Residents for Economic Alternatives Together.
Amadee Braxton
Great’s gardening learning circle meets once a month at different group members’ yards to share knowledge and build skills by doing hands-on garden projects together.
Celeste Preston
So the great gardening learning series I created this year because I saw a need for a space for us to learn gardening techniques, and I wanted to just give folks an opportunity to come together once a month for two hours and whatever questions they have. If I can’t answer, there may be another experienced gardener that could share information.
Amadee Braxton
And Celeste does know a lot about gardening. She studied ornamental horticulture and environmental design from Delaware Valley University. In our first few gatherings, we’ve learned about starting plants from seed, how to propagate plants through cuttings and how to build raised beds. She hosted the first session in the expansive yard of her apartment building. It’s full of edible plants in their early stages, and lots of gardening tools are off to the side.
Celeste Preston
During our first session, I showed everyone how to use recyclables as greenhouses, and right now I have a gallon crystal geyser water bottle that I cut in half, but not completely, so that there is an opening for air, and there’s also holes at the bottom.
Amadee Braxton
So now we’re inside the garden. Let us know what you have growing here.
Celeste Preston
I have so many plants. Growing right now, I have chives growing, purple sage, oregano. I have strawberries that are flowering right now. They have a white flower. I have some cilantro popping up.
Amadee Braxton
At a recent gardening circle gathering, a few of us worked to help clear out a garden bed to prepare for planting, and we put together a small greenhouse kit. I brought some black raspberry cuttings from my yard to share. Next month, we’ll build raised bed frames for another group member. Participants like Elaine say there are a bunch of reasons they enjoy gardening together in small groups like this.
Elaine
Touching the soil, being in the sun, it makes me feel alive and grounded and healthy, like I’m in my body. Yeah, it feels good and it makes me happy to talk to other people.
Amadee Braxton
Group members work to weed an area for planting and fill up a wheelbarrow with the weeds for a nearby compost pile.
Danielle
My name is Danielle. This is my first gardening circle meeting. Actually, growing up, my grandparents had a really awesome garden in the yard, and it was just really a huge part of my childhood, and just kind of became part of my identity. Just being outside and just kind of foraging in the yard, eating whatever you know-the mint, the raspberries, the pears-and I’ve just been dreaming of having that again, and I finally I think I’m able to because we just moved into a house that has like a yard and I can do what I want with it. So I was really excited to see this gardening circle pop up and a place that I could you know learn from some other gardeners and share kind of just in community and support each other.
Amadee Braxton
If you were to get this circle to come to your house to help you, what would you want help with?
Danielle
I’m literally just beginning, so even just identifying what’s already in the yard would be helpful. And ideas of like where to put new things. I just got some raspberry stalks from another neighbor, so I shoved them in the ground in a corner where I think it’s sunny. So I hope, fingers crossed, they do well. But I’m really such a beginner right now, so I’m like just trying to absorb all of the like knowledge I can really.
Amadee Braxton
Well, you can take some of my black raspberries, so you’ll have black raspberries and red raspberries.
Danielle
Thank you. That’s literally recreating my grandma’s yard. That makes my heart so happy. Thank you.
Amadee Braxton
Oh, that’s so great. Okay, cool. This is Amadee Braxton with Block by Block.
This story was broadcast as part of the June 10, 2026 episode of Block by Block.
Note: This transcript was machine-generated and may contain some spelling errors or other inaccuracies.