Grid Magazine

Wanda Lebron’s garden has an open-gate policy. From morning to night, the entrance, framed by sunflowers, is left unlocked so neighbors can stop in to chat, rest or harvest a vegetable from one of the raised garden beds.

But each day, Lebron wakes up knowing that she could lose everything she and her neighbors have built. She does not own the lot where the garden sits. No one has heard from the owner for the roughly 30 years she’s worked on the plot.

“I have been trying to acquire the lot from the City,” she says. “They say there’s nothing they can do. If I can find another lot that’s on the block that’s owned by the City of Philadelphia, I can try to go for that one. … But we didn’t want to do it, because we was working on this so long. We don’t want to start on another lot.”

Thousands of others are in the same boat. Nearly a third of Philadelphia’s 40,000 vacant lots are stewarded by volunteers who don’t have legally recognized rights to the land; those volunteers are at risk of losing all of their work, which can include community spaces they built with their own funds. These lots are concentrated in mainly lower-income neighborhoods and predominantly nonwhite communities.

That’s why Lebron was so excited last month when representatives from the Philadelphia Land Stewards Union knocked on her door and invited her to join their fight. The union, which grew out of Iglesias Garden, is an “organization of neighbors who use and care for vacant lots working together to solve our problems.” They’ve united behind a list of demands, beginning with official recognition by the City. That demand was met June 4, when City Council adopted a resolution introduced by Councilmembers Quetcy Lozada and Kendra Brooks recognizing the work of land stewards, stating the need for transparency and supporting the preservation of stewarded land.

➡️ Read the full story at https://gridphilly.com/blog-home/2026/08/01/philadelphia-city-council-recognizes-stewardship-of-vacant-land/

✍️ + 📸 Gabriel Donahue

Octavia Nash was back for more. She had joined a friend for a paddle on the Delaware River with Camden’s Center for Aquatic Sciences once before and returned for a free kayaking session at Pyne Poynt Park in mid-July, this time with her fiancée. “I like the peacefulness,” she says. “Oh my God, it’s like you leave all the hustle and bustle behind, and you just get to be on the water.” Pyne Poynt sits near where the Cooper River meets the Delaware, facing Petty’s Island, whose lush green tree line mostly blocks the view of the Philadelphia waterfront.

Lion James, assistant manager of community programs for the center, briefed the group of paddlers on safety and outlined the plan for their trip. Camden teens taking part in the center’s Community and Urban Science Enrichment (CAUSE) program passed out life vests and checked that they fit properly (if you can lift the vest over your ears, it’s too loose). Three of the more experienced teens waited at the gravel boat ramp to guide the trip.

Luis Colon helped attendees into their boats before joining them on the water. Colon, who will start his second year of college in the fall, has been in the CAUSE program for seven years, starting in high school. He has spent the last three of those years as a paddling guide. Like Nash, he appreciates the peace that comes from leaving the land-based world behind. “We’re always so busy with work and school. It’s all about, oh, let’s get onto Canva. Let’s get onto Outlook. Let’s get onto Gmail. Let’s get onto this and that. It’s really nice to disconnect and really see what’s here in Camden compared to what’s on your phone and computer.”

➡️ Read the full story at https://gridphilly.com/blog-home/2026/08/01/camden-youth-kayaking-program-gets-residents-paddling-the-delaware/

✍️ Bernard Brown
📸 Matthew Bender

We often think of nature as something untouched: a world apart from our city blocks and neighborhoods, where we go to escape the pace of daily life, take a walk, appreciate wildlife or simply find a moment of quiet. But the landscapes we cherish are rarely separate from us.

In reality, behind every thriving park, flourishing community garden and backyard forest are people committed to caring for them.

This issue explores the many ways neighbors, advocates, volunteers and public officials are working to improve and preserve our shared green spaces — from protecting insects and establishing arboretums to reclaiming vacant land and connecting young people with local waterways.

Their stewardship efforts remind us that the natural spaces we enjoy are shaped by the choices we make to care for them. How we tend to these spaces will determine not only what survives, but how future generations experience the natural world — and whether these places continue to thrive for years to come.

➡️ Read the full Nature Issue now at gridphilly.com

📸 Cover photo by Matthew Bender

Ihad expected the logs, half-deflated basketballs, plastic bottles and other assorted urban debris when I tagged along with a crew from the Philadelphia Water Department tasked with cleaning out the Fairmount Dam fishway back in 2012. What I hadn’t expected was to see the workers pull out two flathead catfish the size of toddlers. The beasts had broad heads and lightly mottled tan patterns on their shiny, scaleless skin.

A fishway (also called a fish ladder) consists of a linked series of closet-sized compartments, each a little higher than the last. These allow shad and other migratory fish to go up and over the dam in steps, resting when they need a break. The predatory flatheads had parked themselves in the compartments; their prey swam right to them.

It might seem obvious that large predators eating shad in fish ladders could have an impact on the waterway. But flatheads can also discourage shad from even trying to go through the ladder. “So they’re not only preying on fish,” says Geoff Smith, a fisheries biologist with the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission who has worked on several studies of flathead catfish ecology. “They’re probably interfering with movement of fish through that fishway.”

➡️ Read the full story at https://gridphilly.com/blog-home/2026/07/01/toddler-sized-catfish-are-making-a-mark-on-philadelphias-river-ecosystems/

✍️ Bernard Brown
📸 Photo courtesy of Connor Brown

Events happening in and around Philadelphia this weekend!

SATURDAY, 7.25
Sankofa Farm Stand at the Black Farmer’s Market: Come purchase fresh, chemical-free, local produce straight from Sankofa Community Farm every second and fourth Saturday at the Black Farmers’ Market.

➡️ Learn More: https://gridphilly.com/event/sankofa-farm-stand-at-the-black-farmers-market-4/

SATURDAY, 7.25
Fruitcake & Florals x Mount Airy Candle Company Scent & Design Workshop: Looking for something mellow to do on a summer Saturday afternoon? Join us for a hands-on floral design workshop led by Fruitcake Floral Studio and inspired by Mount Airy Candle Co.’s SEA AIR & WILDFLOWERS scent.

➡️ Learn More: https://gridphilly.com/event/fruitcake-florals-x-mount-airy-candle-company-scent-design-workshop/

SATURDAY, 7.25
Honey Tasting with Anna Bee’s Honey: Did you know honey has tasting notes just like wine or tea? Join us for a sweet afternoon with our friends from Anna Bee’s Honey as we sample a variety of locally produced raw honeys and explore how the flowers, seasons, and neighborhoods where bees forage influence every jar.

➡️ Learn More: https://gridphilly.com/event/🍯-honey-tasting-with-anna-bees-honey/

Farmers are worried, but they don’t want to talk about it. Evidence is mounting that the nutrient-rich sewage sludge many have applied to their farmland for decades as a low-cost fertilizer often contains perfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, a class of “forever chemicals” that resist degradation in nature and are hazardous to human health. Typically vocal about the challenges they face, farmers are reluctant to discuss their own experience spreading the stuff — and it’s not hard to see why.

Ten years ago, Fred Stone learned that the cows on his third-generation Maine dairy farm were producing tainted milk. For decades, he had been spreading treated sewage across Stoneridge Farm’s 100 acres as part of a state program — one of many across the country. He’d never had a problem until the local water district found PFAS in a well it maintained on his land. The chemicals have been linked to a range of health risks, including cancer, decreased fertility, low birth weight and hormone disruption.

In some of the farm’s milk, PFAS levels were 20 times higher than the federal limit for drinking water. It was present in soil, hay and manure as well — particularly in areas where the sewage sludge had been applied. By the time a state investigation concluded, Stone had put down many of his poisoned cows and racked up nearly $500,000 in debt. His farm became a warning to others around the country about the risks of using sewage sludge.

➡️ Read the full story at https://gridphilly.com/blog-home/2026/07/01/american-farmland-threatened-by-tainted-processed-sewage/

✍️ Ben Seal
📸 Matthew Bender

When Grid visited the LandHealth Institute (LHI) nursery in May, community nursery operations lead Sara Mae Henke and native plant nursery associate Marcelino Smith were repotting hundreds of tiny bee balm plants from flats into pots to prepare them for sale. Behind them rose the arching end of a high tunnel greenhouse sheathed in plastic sheeting. In front of them, on the other side of a fence, stretched the endless rowhouse blocks of the River Wards.

LHI was still settling in after moving from its previous nursery site in West Philadelphia’s Parkside neighborhood, which it had occupied since 2018. The Philadelphia Industrial Development Corporation, which owned the property, sold it earlier this year.

The new LHI community nursery sits on part of the former Greensgrow Farm site, which closed in 2022, and is owned by New Kensington Community Development Corporation (NKCDC). The closure of Greensgrow, which leased the site from NKCDC, left a big blank spot on the map and in the life of the community. Catherine Reuter, NKCDC’s urban agriculture and community garden program manager, says the organization is still planning the property’s long-term future. “We’ve been in this reimagining period,” Reuter says. “We’re committed to making it stay urban agriculture- and community garden-focused, but still really dreaming and scheming around what the next 20, 40, 60 years should look like for the site and what investments we need to make.”

➡️ Read the full story at https://gridphilly.com/blog-home/2026/07/01/former-west-philly-community-garden-makes-new-home-in-kensington/

✍️ Bernard Brown
📸 Tracie Van Auken

Flanked by cardboard signs reading “Free 5-Minute Tuneups” and “We Come to Your Bike!” Lauren “Mittens” Mitten lifted another bike — one of about 25 that day — onto a stand under the bright sun and got to work.

Mitten, owner of The Mittens Pop Up Bike Shop, spent the afternoon of May 16 outside of Eco-Fair at Cherry Street Pier checking tires, inspecting frames, adjusting derailleurs and lubricating chains.

But during these five-minute tuneups, Mitten sometimes discovers there’s more wrong with a bike than meets the eye.

“People often don’t know what’s wrong with their bike,” Mitten says. Sometimes, a person who thinks they need a simple tuneup needs just that. Other times, Mitten starts working on a bike only to discover it needs replacement parts and hours of work.

But thankfully for these riders who need more complex repairs, Mitten doesn’t only pop up at events like Eco-Fair and the Clark Park Farmers Market. As a mobile bike mechanic, Mitten makes house calls by appointment, fixing bikes at customers’ homes, workplaces or wherever they might get a flat tire.

“I really love doing it mobile. People like it a lot because they didn’t have to take their bike anywhere — they didn’t have to lose their bike for a week or two,” Mitten says. “I really appreciate that I can make that accessible. In a bike shop, I couldn’t do that, because they would have to walk their bike a mile, or three miles.”

➡️ Read the full story at https://gridphilly.com/blog-home/2026/07/01/philly-mobile-bike-mechanic-makes-repairs-by-house-call/

✍️ + 📸 Julia Lowe

Roughly half of the Swarthmore College field hockey team’s away games last season were played on “field hockey turf,” a water-based artificial turf standard for the sport. But because the college’s Clothier Field Stadium is “field turf” — which head coach Hannah Harris says varies widely from location to location and can affect player performance — the team had to travel up to 17 miles to other colleges’ fields so they could have some practice time on the surface ahead of the game.

“This is what our sport is supposed to be played on,” Harris says of field hockey turf. “It’s something that every field hockey player wants to play on. It just completely changes the style of play in the game.”

The team’s practice hardships would be alleviated by Swarthmore’s plans to upgrade the outdoor Cunningham Field by installing two synthetic fields, including one that’s field hockey turf. Then, the team would no longer need to head off campus to play on the artificial turf that’s been a mainstay in the practice conditions of the last two decades of NCAA champions, or share the turf field with other teams.

But while college officials say the “reimagining” of Cunningham Field would additionally allow for increased year-round practice and reduced maintenance and injuries, neighbors are concerned about possible chemicals in the artificial turf, including PFAS and microplastics, as well as increased ground temperatures.

Last March, when the college requested that Swarthmore Borough approve the new complex with the two synthetic turf fields, plus a natural grass field and 12 tennis courts, debates started between administrators and residents over who should decide the fate of Cunningham Field in a conversation that’s ongoing.

➡️ Read the full story at https://gridphilly.com/blog-home/2026/07/01/swarthmore-colleges-planned-facilities-upgrade-has-potential-consequences/

✍️ Lucy Tobier