MARTHA’S COMMUNITY FARM

FOOD POWER!

Martha’s Choice Marketplace and Community Farm is the largest food pantry in Montgomery County, serving almost 20,000 individuals and delivering 1.5 million pounds of food every year. Our mission is to build community through access to healthy food. The Choice Marketplace pantry distributes food directly to clients living in Norristown, PA, while our farm in Audubon provides fresh produce to the pantry.

Even in our local neighborhoods, food insecurity is a significant issue. Current food production and distribution systems provide large amounts of food inexpensively and quickly, but they have critical challenges. Inequitable food access, unsustainable growing methods and disrupted supply chains are, in some way, affecting us all. For families struggling with food insecurity, these vulnerabilities have an even greater impact.

At Martha’s, we believe food is power. We work together with clients and members of the community to address today’s food system challenges. Our Farm is a welcoming venue for communities with limited access to agricultural opportunity. Along with our many partners, we offer resources that empower learning about healthy food and how to grow it together. Our programs increase connections between people across all kinds of backgrounds. This forms a real and diverse community that guides what food is grown and how community members can participate in growing it. In this way, the community itself helps lead in building capacity for a secure and just food system.

THE FOOD POWER PATH

The Farm is comprised of a number of growing areas connected by the walking and learning Food Power Path. All along the path, individuals and groups interact with opportunities to grow or learn about food, community and sustainability. Participants gain a better understanding of the needs and possible solutions for robust urban agriculture as a way to build equitable food access.

The Food Power Path includes:

THE POWER GARDEN
The Power Garden is a beautiful and dynamic garden with 60 raised beds and pergolas that brings people together around the knowledge, power and community of growing food.
COMPOST STATION 1
The compost we create here together helps benefit the vegetables we grow for donation, reduces waste of materials and serves as a how-to for composting at home or in a community space.
MUSHROOM ROOM
Along with the fresh shitake mushrooms being donated to the pantry, this space introduces fundamental concepts of fungi and their importance in ecosystems and to humans.
GREENHOUSE
This space keeps our vegetables warmer when it’s cool and cooler when it’s warm to give plants the right temperatures to optimize growing or get an early start for a more productive harvest for the pantry.
FIELD 1
Last year the entire field was grown with red and gold potatoes for the pantry and this year we’re putting some nitrogen back into the soil with delicious watermelon.
FOOD FOREST
Imagine a one acre forest which is made entirely of trees and other plants that all bare food. The food forest serves as a model to replicate by individuals or the community and all of the food goes to the pantry.
WELL HOUSE
The best view of the ten acre farm, St. Gabe’s and the local landscape from the well that supplies water to all of the Community Farm gardens.
APIARY
This joint venture between volunteer beekeepers and Martha’s teaches about the importance of bees in pollinating our food and provides clients at the pantry with fresh honey.
COMPOST STATION 2
The compost we create here together helps benefit the vegetables we grow for donation, reduces waste of materials and serves as a how-to for composting at home or in a community space.
GREENER PARTNERS
The home base of the Greener partners Healthy Schools project is based at the Farm. Vegetables in containers from the growing area are loaded on to the mobile explorer truck and travel to schools to teach all kinds of fun things to students about nutrition and growing.
COMMUNITY LED GARDEN
This area is a developing partnership with the community in sustainable growing, where residents and pantry clients learn how to grow food sustainably, and offer direct input into what foods are grown.
AUDUBON ALLEY
This area houses a native meadow, a bird supportive habitat area and an outdoor picnic/classroom area to increase native habitat space and explore the relationships between various ecological systems, human activity and the food system.
TOWNSHIP GARDEN
Residents of Lower Providence Township have a community space to grow vegetables, get to know other residents and come together in a beautiful space around food and growing together.
TEA GARDEN
The various fresh teas grown here are all sent to the pantry for people to enjoy and include mints such as apple, chocolate, pineapple and lemon balm, echinacea and holy basil.
MEETING GARDEN
The best place on the farm to meet, greet and see each other while light and color play off Maria’s crystals.

OUR PARTNERS

The Farm is a nexus for organizations and community members interested in local food production, agricultural and environmental education and the creation of a just food system in our area. This intersection of talented and passionate individuals and innovative organizations provides a platform to develop an ever-growing reservoir of resources for the community.

Some of our many partners include: