I realized the other day that all the vegetables I planted in the bathtub were, to my surprise, doing quite well.  So I thought I'd take a quick look back at the month-ish long progression of the bathtub plants. Here they are on July 19th.  Such sad, sad plants!  They had been suffering in pots on a porch that was not very sunny.  Poor guys. [caption id="" align="alignnone" width="500"] eggplant, tomatoes and peppers[/caption] On July 26th they didn't look much better but you can see the eggplant in the left-hand corner of the tub has nice new green leaves: [caption id="" align="alignnone" width="500"] still pretty yellow[/caption] Somewhere along the line they must have decided they liked the tub so by August 4th they were looking fuller and needed more staking: [caption id="" align="alignnone" width="500"] much more green![/caption] And then, well, things got crazy with my house and we had lots of rain and before I knew it the tub was bursting with vegetable plants!  They look healthy!  This is August 21st: [caption id="" align="alignnone" width="500"] tomatoes always take over, but the eggplant and peppers are holding their own[/caption] As usual, the tomatoes have engulfed all their stakes and have blooms but not too many tomatoes.  I did eat a yellow copia that was sweet and delicious but unfortunately I failed to photograph it.  Here is some photographic evidence that the peppers are growing, though: [caption id="" align="alignnone" width="500"] pepper![/caption] My unscientific explanation for why there are no tomatoes yet is that the tomato plants themselves have to grow bigger (which they can now since they have lots more dirt to grow in) before they start producing tomatoes.  I've been trying to break off the suckers when I see them - to tell the plants that it's time to start producing fruit instead of just continuing to grow - but they grow so fast now that I miss lots of them if I'm not out there every day.  But as long as we get no freak September snowstorms I'm fine with harvesting early fall tomatoes.  Last year I was still getting tomatoes into December so right now I'm in no rush. And just a reminder that the Second Annual South Philly Garden Tour is coming up on September 8th!  I speak from experience when I say the last one was loads of fun.  You can read my thoughts on last year's tour here.    Now go get your tickets!  It really is amazing to see what people can grow in small city spaces.

Another in an occasional series of blog posts highlighting our wonderful Shop South Philly Partners. Bartram’s Garden has inspired people to see with all their senses for over 5,000 years (even before it bore the name "Batram's" -ed.). The grounds are free and open to the public year-round except on city-observed holidays For a more in-depth experience, Bartram’s Garden offers guided tours of both the historic garden as well as the Bartram family home. New in 2012: What if every visitor to Bartram’s Garden could take home a plant? What if they could check out a leaf in a microscope or look up an interesting bloom in a reference book? Two new initiatives are literally bringing our mission to life. Visit their website for more information about these exciting new opportunities. For all South Philly Food Co-op members, Bartram's Garden is offering $2 off the regular price of Day Pass admission (does not apply to senior or student admission). Just show your member card! Bartram's Garden is located along the Schuylkill River southwest of Center City at 54th St. and Lindbergh Blvd. And speaking of gardens... we are just 19 days away from the 2nd Annual South Philly Garden Tour on Saturday, September 8. Inspired by the same impulses that drove John Bartram, our Garden Tour participants are a mix of fruit and vegetable growers, ornamental gardeners, flower enthusiasts, rooftop adventurers, container experts and vertical experiments. Tickets are on sale NOW for $20 at a number of locations AND at any event the Co-op is doing from now until the Tour. For your convenience, they are also available online. Check out some photos from last year's Garden Tour which enjoyed a 99% satisfaction rate among surveyed participants. This year's Tour features over 20 gardens, many of which are new this year, with an emphasis on home gardens. So if you went on the Tour last year, be prepared for a whole slew of different gardens. Get your tickets now!

The thing that stresses me out in the kitchen is measuring, so I try to avoid it. Over the winter, I made my version of the conversion chart/art "(ch)art?" I saw on The Kitchn, and that helps with some of it.                   But there are other measurements that I keep having to Google*. As I mentioned when I first posted that (ch)art - and I'm going to have to trademark that word and make it my own - I often have to Google the conversion from packet of yeast to jar of yeast (it's 2.25 teaspoons). Here are links to some nifty online conversion tools and printables that you can tack up on the inside of your cabinet door.The one that really hangs me up is the butter. I don't buy my butter in sticks, so I have to weigh it. I have no idea what a stick, or a cup, or three tablespoons of butter is. I'm never going to have a brick oven, or need brick oven cooking advice, but I've bookmarked TraditionalOven.com (and it's exactly that) because of their awesome butter converter. I could convert ounces to teaspoons, or grams to cups, or cups to grams, or sticks to fathoms. Ok, not fathoms.                   On the right side of that website there are more than 30 other converters, for everything from flour to temperature to precious metals. But whoa do I use that butter converter. Similarly, Convert-me.com has everything from ounces/spoons/liters to measures of radioactivity and fuel economy. These online converters are great if you have a tablet in the kitchen or your hands aren't so dough-covered that you can't run to the computer. When online tools just aren't the answer, it's handy to have something printed and within easy reach. Cookbook People has a downloadable PDF that looks a bit busy because it has everything - pan dimensions to volume, how much solid cheese you need to start with in order to end up with the right amount of grated cheese, and cooking time for hardboiled eggs. I wouldn't usually link to this but I keep seeing references to it - Martha Stewart has some downloadable measurement tools... everything from ounces and cups to candy-making temperatures. If Martha's not your type, Remodelaholics has a pretty printable that includes metric conversions, so we can cook like the rest of the world**. One more like that - ishouldbemoppingthefloor has a nice downloadable printable conversation chart that includes bushels to pecks as well as safe meat temperatures. TipNut has a full page of substitutions. Sure, I've clabbered milk before to sub for buttermilk, but I've never made faux soy sauce with molasses, ginger, worcestershire and flour. Seriously? Where's the salt? If you have an old-timey, classic cookbook, the back pages often have conversions and substitutions.  These are much handier than the tables of random numbers you'll find in the back of your old statistics text. This is cross-posted at Saturday’s Mouse, where I’m working on making food out of food. *Conversions remind me of the old Saturday Night Live commercial - series of commercials, actually- for First CityWide Change Bank. There are three of them. They're 25 years old and still entirely hilarious. **We're one of three countries that isn't metric.

Photographers Needed When: Saturday, September 8th, 1pm to 5pm We need 3 people to help photograph the event - each person will be assigned a group of gardens to visit and capture on film. If photography and urban gardens excite you, this is the volunteer opportunity for you. Hang Balloons at Participating Gardens When: Saturday, September 8th, 9 - 10:30 am Where: TBD We need 5 volunteers to hang balloons at host gardens on morning of the Garden Tour. You'll be asked to deliver balloons to four Garden Tour sites to help participants easily identify host gardens. Garden Tour Check-In When: Saturday, September 8th, two shifts: 12 - 2pm and 1:45 - 3:45 pm Where: Urban Jungle (1526 East Passyunk Avenue) We need 1 committee member and 3 volunteers for each shift to help check people in for the tour. You will be selling tickets, taking tickets, handing out Guide Books, taking Member-Owner applications, and providing informational material about the Co-op. Staff the After-Party at the Cantina When: Saturday, September 8th, 5 - 7 pm Where: Cantina Los Caballitos (1651 East Passyunk Avenue) We need 1 committee member and 1 volunteer to table at the Cantina After-Party. You will be collecting Garden Voting Ballots, tallying up votes, and providing informational material about the Co-op. Email us at [email protected] to let us know when you can help out. Thanks! Volunteering at these events is a great way to help the Co-op advance its main goal of the moment: getting to 400 members! If you are currently a member-owner, volunteering at any of these events will count toward your household’s annual 8 hour volunteer commitment. For those who haven’t become members yet but are interested in volunteering, your hours are being tracked and will be applied to your account when you join.

Hello Co-op members and volunteers! The Co-op's biggest fundraiser of the year, the Garden Tour, is fast approaching on Saturday, September 8th. To make this a successful event, we need volunteer help on a number of fronts. Flyering for the Garden Tour When: The last two weeks in August (dates and times flexible) Where: All over South Philly We need 1-2 volunteers to hang flyers advertising the Garden Tour for each zip code 19145, 19146, 19147, 19148. A committee member will coordinate with you to arrange a time to get you the posters you will be distributing. We only ask that you provide the tape/staples for hanging them. Help get the word out in your neighborhood! We're looking to hit poles and community bulletin boards throughout the area. We'll also be looking for volunteers to help us be good neighbors and remove the posters after the Tour is over. Email us at [email protected] to let us know when you can help out. Thanks! Volunteering at these events is a great way to help the Co-op advance its main goal of the moment: getting to 400 members! If you are currently a member-owner, volunteering at any of these events will count toward your household's annual 8 hour volunteer commitment. For those who haven't become members yet but are interested in volunteering, your hours are being tracked and will be applied to your account when you join.

Last time I touched on the fact that I was, um, struggling with some invasive plants that go by the name of Wild Morning Glory (Convolvulus arvensis), not to be confused with the nice, non-wild Morning Glory (Ipomoea tricolor or Convolvulus tricolor.)  Regular Morning Glory is nice and not invasive at all:  it grows and flowers and then dies and it's gone.  Normal plant stuff.  BUT.  This wild one is different.  Check out the roots on this little one I just pulled up: [caption id="" align="alignnone" width="375"] WHAT[/caption] You can see by my handy thumb-scale that the part of the plant that was above the ground was very, very small.  But those roots, especially those two fat ones, are HUGE.  Those fatties are also the ones that release this odd, peppery, skunky smell when you break them, which is always accompanied by much cursing that you broke the root instead of pulling the whole thing out.  At least, uh, in my case.  But you know what?  You can't pull the whole thing out because it grows ANYWHERE.  Case in point: [caption id="" align="alignnone" width="375"] mephisto's nightmare[/caption] That little one is growing through concrete.  Concrete!  There is a tiny crack there and somehow this little thing found its way out through it.  With some quick Googling I found lots of people complaining incredulously that they tried to dig the roots of these devilish things out only to find they went all the way under their houses.  Yikes. The issue isn't that it's an ugly plant; it has nice flowers like Morning Glories and it certainly grows fast which is usually a good thing in my book.  Here it is covering the fence on one side of my yard when I first bought my house: [caption id="" align="alignnone" width="500"] can't even tell there's a fence under there, right?[/caption] So that's cool.  The problem is that it strangles other plants - I had to pull it off the tomatoes and the little Japanese maple that were struggling for their lives.  It will actually choke plants and kill them and  you know what?  That's not very nice.  I normally like vines - ivy and honeysuckle in particular - but those are not so vicious as to actually kill many plants, at least not, you know, overnight.  Seriously, if you let this thing go for more than a couple of days you'll have a big problem on your hands. I'm still committed to getting rid of it without chemicals and I have read a few things that say that if you pull out the top growth repeatedly - like every other day - it will cut off the plant's food production system and maybe in a few years it'll all die.  I kid, but it is actually tough to kill it that way and you have to keep at it, or the parts of the plant that sprout will give the roots enough food to continue living.  It doesn't really help to pull out the roots (although it is extremely satisfying to rip out foot after foot of these horrible, smelly roots) because if you control the top foot or so of the plant you'll kill the food supply, which will in turn kill the rest of the plant.  Apparently the roots can go down 20 feet or more so it is actually pretty futile to try to get them all - basically you never will so you'd better just give up now.  It's a good thing this isn't a metaphor for anything because that would be depressing. After all that, I think we should end on a positive note.  My pepper plants are literally bursting with baby peppers and I have lots of green tomatoes on their way to ripening.  Let's end with this strange and slightly phallic baby Jersey Giant tomato, and I apologize for using the words "phallic" and "baby" in such close proximity: [caption id="" align="alignnone" width="375"] Jersey Giants not yet giant[/caption] So I continue to struggle to control the voracious weed while delighting in my soon-to-be bounty.  Onward and upward, indeed.

Hello Co-op members and volunteers! The Co-op's biggest fundraiser of the year, the Garden Tour, is fast approaching on Saturday, September 8th. To make this a successful event, we need volunteer help on a number of fronts. Garden Tour Ticket Sales at Passyunk Farmers' Market When: August 22nd, 4 - 7 pm (start time flexible) August 29th, 4 - 7 pm (start time flexible) September 5th, 4 - 7 pm (start time flexible) Where: Passyunk Square Fountain (East Passyunk Avenue and Tasker Street) We are in need of some volunteers to staff the Co-op table at the Farmers' Market. You'll be working with a committee member and passing out materials, taking member applications and selling Garden Tour tickets. If you can help with one or more of these dates, please let us know. Email us at [email protected] to let us know when you can help out. Thanks! Volunteering at these events is a great way to help the Co-op advance its main goal of the moment: getting to 400 members! If you are currently a member-owner, volunteering at any of these events will count toward your household's annual 8 hour volunteer commitment. For those who haven't become members yet but are interested in volunteering, your hours are being tracked and will be applied to your account when you join.

As the end of summer draws nigh, we will gather tonight for one more Gold Star Music in The Park event. Come out and enjoy a beautiful August night with the music of East Coastamite, a good-time, get-down, instrumental four-piece preaching the word of 60s-inspired, soul, surf, and organ jazz. Of course food is part of the deal -- the Co-op is celebrating with a a potluck. Bring your favorite dish made with at least one local ingredient to share and don't forget to BYOB(lanket). Event begins at 7pm at Gold Star Park on Wharton between 6th and 7th. Sign up to become a member-owner that night and you'll receive $15 in gift cards for the Farm to City farmers markets. And if that's not enough of an incentive, the first 40 people who stop by our table will get a free Little Baby’s ice cream sandwich. Though we can't promise that you'll get to meet Little Baby's viral video sensation (which is perhaps for the best if you're bringing small children). See you there!

Okay, so let's say you're not reeeaaallly convinced that you're ready to step up your support for the South Philly Food Coop to the next level.  Or maybe you're game, but you're partner's a skeptic.  Well, here's  a tip that can tip a skeptic over the tipping point:  National Cooperative Grocers Association (NCGA) has put together a 21-page super-credible and highly-readable report about the impact of food coops on their local communities.  It's amazing. Don't have the time to pore over an amazing 21-page document?  No problem.  Check out the 2-minute video synopsis.  It's conciousness-raising on speed.  You gotta try it.

Sick of doing laundry, but don't know how to explain it to your mom?  Our friends at Wash Cycle Laundry have sweetened their offer for coop members.  Check them out on the Shop South Philly page  or catch up with them between gardens during the second annual Garden Tour on September 8!