Penn State Cooperative Extension, a community center, and a church collaborated to conduct Garden Mosaics in eastern PA. In Allentown, Emelie from Lehigh County Cooperative Extension and Alyssa, an undergraduate from Cornell University, worked with five youth and with elders from the Casa Guadeloupe Community Center community garden. In Easton, Emelie and Alyssa worked with 15 youth who were involved in a summer program at the Church of God by Faith.

The Casa Guadaloupe Community Garden
Casa Guadalupe is located in a commercial and residential neighborhood in the east end of Allentown. The Center provides a range of services to the surrounding Hispanic community. They serve meals to seniors, provide educational and recreational programs for youth, and house a health clinic. The community garden was established on a vacant lot adjacent to the Center and was purchased from the city of Allentown for $1 in 1991. Approximately 15 senior citizens, with ties to the Center each have their own garden plots. Some of the elders who participated in Garden Mosaics include Lorraine, Alexandrina, Lucie, and Ligia.

The youth learned from Lorraine that most gardeners start planting there in April. If the spring is mild, some will start in March. July and August are the most important harvest months. By September, the gardeners—with the help of youth from the community center—begin cleaning out their plots and the season comes to an end.

Lucie gave the youth a tour of the garden. The youth observed that the most common crops grown by the gardeners are peppers, tomatoes, beans, and coriander (cilantro). Although Alexandrina does not have a plot this year, she told the youth about the plants she usually grows: tomatoes, beans, pigeon peas (gandules), broccoli, pumpkins, cabbage, eggplant, mint, and cilantro. Alexandrina uses mint as a tea for an upset stomach and uses the herb cilantro in many cultural dishes. She tends to plant in rows and uses hanging baskets and other containers to maximize growing space. She keeps her plants and soil healthy through adding compost and fertilizer to the soil. In order to manage insects without using harsh chemicals, she uses a homemade insect spray that involves mixing one gallon of water, one teaspoon of oil, two tablespoons detergent, and one teaspoon of baking soda.

During the summer, some of the produce in the garden, particularly the herbs, are used in the Casa Guadeloupe Kitchen. Ligia helped the youth prepare a lunch in the Casa kitchen using some of the plants they saw growing in the garden. The feast included tomato and onion salad, potato salad, rice and gandules, and fried eggplant. While sharing the food with some of Casa's staff, the youth got the idea to paint and decorate the four picnic tables that are located under a pavilion in the garden. Once they received permission, the youth set about creating murals on the picnic tables. Through this beautification project, the youth gained an appreciation for the role that the garden plays not only for food production, but also in providing a place for gardeners to relax and share stories. The gardeners told the youth that the most important thing the garden provides is a place for community members to gather, talk, relax, and be happy.

The Church of God by Faith Community Garden
The Church of God by Faith is located several blocks from the downtown square in Easton in a neighborhood with houses and stores. Northampton County Cooperative Extension helped the members of the congregation of the Church of God by Faith start the garden in April of 2002. The garden consists of several small raised beds, containers, and an adjacent planting area. Although the garden is for the benefit of the entire Church community, only a few members of the congregation are active gardeners.

Youth at this site had a unique opportunity to help build and care for the garden. They experienced the transformation of a formerly brushy area into a garden. When the youth began Garden Mosaics activities in early July, the planting area had just been tilled and the raised beds and containers were filled mostly with squash, sunflowers, collards, and tomatoes. An elder from the Church, Curtis, pointed out that the collards in one of the raised beds were overcrowded and needed to be transplanted. He had just tilled the adjacent planting area with a roto-tiller and created mounded rows. Curtis showed the youth an effective way of transplanting seedlings into dry soil on a hot day. Everyone formed an assembly line, placing the transplants on the ground along rows. Then they mounded up soil around the seedlings. Finally, the youth filled cups with water from nearby buckets and watered each seedling. Soon there were rows of healthy collard transplants with plenty of room to grow.

Through helping in the garden, the youth learned about soils and other things that are essential for healthy plants. They also learned from Joe, a Northampton County Master Gardener, about the role insects play in the garden, and they discovered that the buckets they filled for watering the plants had become a home for mosquito larvae. Their work in the garden was rewarded at the end of the Garden Mosaics activities, as they were able to enjoy some of the harvest.