A stretch of blacktop in Philadelphia’s Mantua neighborhood now grows tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers and eggplants. The garden was created by 12th Street Catering with help from Trellis for Tomorrow, and its 2026 harvest has passed 300 pounds. CBS Philadelphia reported the project’s results on September 28; Trellis’s current garden record lists 315 pounds harvested this year. The number is modest beside a commercial farm’s output, but it gives a former paved space a practical job: producing fresh food to share.
From a rooftop garden to a neighborhood lot
The partnership began before this season. In a September 2025 account, 12th Street Catering said Trellis had installed a street-level garden that August, replacing a rooftop garden. The company described eight large raised beds and fall plantings that included red cabbage, romaine, kale and Swiss chard. At the time, the partners expected Trellis to return the following spring for a full 2026 growing season.
Trellis’s current listing differs on one detail: it now records 10 beds at the 12th Street site, as well as 315 pounds harvested in 2026. The public pages do not explain when or why the bed count changed, so the two figures describe separate records rather than a confirmed expansion. What is clear is that the garden continued into the planned growing season and produced a measurable harvest.
CBS described the garden as an empty, paved area before the partnership filled it with crops. The transformation does not require a dramatic story about a whole neighborhood changing overnight. It is a concrete local change: a piece of blacktop now supports beds of vegetables, and a catering company and a nonprofit work together on a local garden.
Growing food is only part of the plan
Trellis for Tomorrow’s Food for All program helps partner organizations design and install raised-bed gardens. The nonprofit says it also provides a stewardship plan and volunteer education. That structure matters because a garden needs ongoing care after the beds arrive. It needs people who can plant, tend and record what grows, along with a plan for where the food will go.
The program asks participating organizations to commit to donating at least half of their harvest to local food-assistance programs. CBS reported that Trellis agricultural innovation manager Josh Hughes described a similar community-sharing commitment at the Mantua garden. The nonprofit’s public page explains the program-wide rule; its individual garden listing reports harvest weight, not a breakdown of how much of this site’s crop was donated.
CBS also reported that 12th Street shares produce with employees and their families and invites neighbors to take what they need. That means the garden’s reach is not limited to a single recipient group. Workers, families and people living nearby can all encounter the harvest, while the program’s food-assistance commitment connects the project to a wider network of local support.
A harvest that can be counted
The figure of 315 pounds comes from Trellis’s current site record. CBS separately described the yield as more than 300 pounds, estimating it could make about 1,200 meals. That meal figure is the station’s estimate, not a count of meals served. The reporting and the organization’s ledger point to the same broad result while making clear that pounds harvested do not, by themselves, show exactly who received each portion.
The garden also gives the partnership something that announcements alone cannot: a record of work continuing after the initial installation. The 2025 post described the beds and the first planned crops. The 2026 listing records the current bed count and harvest, while CBS’s report brings the people behind the effort into view, including 12th Street chief executive and executive chef Adam DeLosso and Trellis staff member Hughes.
For DeLosso, CBS reported, the garden creates a chance to slow down from the work of running kitchens and events and spend time working in the soil with other people. That is his description of what the project offers him, not a claim that a garden solves food insecurity. The more measurable account is narrower: the partnership has kept a growing site in operation, recorded a 315-pound harvest and made produce available to people connected to the business and the surrounding community.
Mantua’s garden is one small example of what can happen when an organization’s unused outdoor space gets a steady purpose and a local partner brings growing experience. The paved area is now part of a program that pairs gardens with care plans, volunteer learning and a commitment to share food. Its 2026 harvest is documented, its wider donation total is not published, and the vegetables themselves offer a simple reason for neighbors and coworkers to take part.
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