Working in teams- while one student dug; another positioned the new plant, and a third sat ready to gently pat new soil atop each plant- students worked for several hours alongside members of the non-profit Philadelphia Orchard Project to plant fig, persimmon, and Asian pear trees, as well as other edible and medicinal greens including lemon balm and comfrey.

This urban eco-orchard, likely the only one of its kind in the immediate neighborhood, now comprises plants specially selected and to bear fruits (figs, pears, raspberries, strawberries), vegetables (onions, asparagus) and herbs (mint, tarragon, fennel) in the Spring and Fall to coincide with the school the year.

The development of this young eco-orchard has kick-started a key component of Greening Greenfield's overarching vision to engage students in their immediate environment. As today's gardening efforts illustrated, these students- many of whom had never planted a plant, held a shovel, nor tasted a fig- were eager to, and excited by, their ability create a sustainable environment that they could help monitor and maintain.

Long-term goals for the Greenfield Eco-Orchard include students planning and managing the distribution of their harvest to food trusts, as well as fund-raising opportunities geared towards sustainability. Delaware Valley Earth Force will help facilitate the student involvement with these and other enviro-service learning projects.

And like many aspects of the Greening Greenfield project, the edible orchard exemplifies sustainability on multiple levels. In addition to producing fruits and veggies, the replacement of the existing impervious asphalt paving with a permeable plant bed for the orchard is a pivotal component of the project's overall storm water management strategy. to protect our waterways. By absorbing the rain water for the plants to grow instead of letting it flow over the paving and into the sewer system.

So as these newly planted saplings mature, and these young plants produce their valuable harvest in the years to come, these 35 young ‘urban green thumbs' from Ms. Brown and Mr. Bentz's Tuesday morning science class can survey the ‘fruits' of their labor and reiterate, as one 8th grader yelled upon planting the fig tree, "Check it out- can you believe what WE can do?!"