Interview. Doris Stahl (The Spring Gardens)

Stahl, Doris

Spring Gardens, The (Philadelphia, Pa.)

Community gardens -- Pennsylvania -- Philadelphia

Urban gardening -- Pennsylvania -- Philadelphia

Pennsylvania State University. Cooperative Extension Service

Pennsylvania State University. Cooperative Extension Service. Master Gardener Program

Philadelphia (Pa.). Parks and Recreation

Interview with community gardener and former Penn State Extension worker Doris Stahl, who brought the Master Gardener Program to Philadelphia, on-site in The Spring Gardens community garden.

Stahl recalls her childhood teaching herself to garden in West Philadelphia and her transition from art education to the Penn State Urban Gardening Program. She gives an overview of the program's institutional history with the USDA, US Fish and Wildlife, and the Department of the Interior. Stahl discusses her work from 1985 to 1996 bringing the Master Gardeners Program as a horticultural educator with the extension based in West Philadelphia, her work directing the Philadelphia extension after the Urban Gardening Program's defunding in 1996 until her retirement in 2011. Stahl describes involvement with the Spring Gardens neighborhood and The Spring Gardens Community Garden. She and Joseph Makuc, PHS interviewer, tour the site.

The interview closes with Stahl's reflections on the future of The Spring Gardens as a protected garden with Philadelphia Parks and Recreation and the opportunities and challenges facing community gardens across the city today.

Makuc, Joseph

Stahl, Doris