Want to see what our Co-op might look like? Join us for a tour of Mariposa Food Co-op in West Philly. You can select to either meet at the Fountain at East Passyunk Ave and Tasker Street at 11am to travel together via car or bike, or meet at Mariposa at 4824 Baltimore Ave at noon. After meeting from a representative of this awesome community-owned grocery store, we'll buy lunch and then visit Little Baby's Ice Cream at their new Cedar Park location. Saturday, May 11, 2013, 12:00 PM - 2:00 PM Mariposa Co-op, 4824 Baltimore Avenue, Philadelphia, PA 19143 (A group will be departing from the Fountain at East Passyunk and Tasker at 11am)  

It finally happened!!

baby vegetables

The raised bed has been filled with lots and lots and lots of dirt and sand and compost and now things are planted!  And lest you think it's small, let me tell you that it's ten feet long by three feet wide, and that's the inside measurements.

excuse the mess; I am in the process of "screening" out soooooo much garbage from the soil in the back

Having never had this much space to plant in, I didn't really know what I was doing.  Ha.  So we just kept filling my little car's trunk full of soil and compost and sand and rocks (for a layer of drainage on the bottom) and, yeah, it took a lot of dirt to fill that bed up.  But I knew it had to be done now since my tomatoes were huge and the giganto-bean was starting to climb up the blinds.  So yesterday afternoon I planted tomatoes (copia and black krim), three types of mustard greens, broccoli, bibb and romaine lettuce, some sort of long green pepper, cucumbers, thyme and chives.  That's a lot, but I was so excited about having MY OWN RAISED BED that I didn't mind.

sitting sturdily on cracked concrete

There are some things I think I should tell you, though, in case you are thinking about your own raised bed.  The first thing is that I have no idea if this will work.  The bed itself is made of untreated spruce.  I did not physically nail it together - that was my father who is good at things like that.  I was going to stain the whole thing, but after starting to stain that back lefthand corner of the bed I decided I didn't like the color.  But I was still a little worried about the wood rotting so I stained the inside with two coats and let it dry overnight.  I have no idea if this will help or not.  I also am unsure about drainage:  as you can see, the bed is on cracked concrete and there is also a large rectangle of dirt inside it so I figured that would be good for drainage.  I dumped a 2" layer of pebbles inside the bed before putting anything else in and then spread some of that black landscaper's fabric on the pebbles so that the dirt from inside the bed wouldn't impede drainage.  Then I did layers and layers of soil, sand and compost until the last foot or so which was just soil and compost.  The sand is to help with drainage but, again, I'm not sure if it will work.

welcome to your new home!

I think I have mentioned before that I have a bit of a cat problem, meaning that there are a few cats who like to use my yard as a litter box.  After filling this huge bed with soil, I realized it was basically just a huge litter box, so I covered it with tarps held down with bricks and other potted plants when I finished filling it this past weekend.  That was actually a good idea because it rained early in the week and I didn't want to plant in waterlogged soil.  The other plus from this was that when I lifted the tarps off (after a nice warm sunny day) the soil was nice and warm, perfect for little delicate baby plants.  And I should tell you here that I did something highly unorthodox:  I didn't harden off my little seedlings before putting them in.  Usually I do harden off, but this time was different.  [Hardening off is when you set your tender seedlings outside for a little bit more time each day to get them used to this new harsher environment slooooowly.]  My main reason for not hardening off is that these plants were grown in a less sunny window than what I'm used to and they were routinely subjected to temperatures as low as 55-60 degrees because I keep my house at a toasty 64 degrees in the winter.  I considered getting heat mats or grow lights, but the seeds seemed to be growing pretty well without any of that.  The (hopeful) payoff is that they're hardier than little seedlings grown in an 85 degree greenhouse.  And honestly, the tomatoes are so big they're probably past the hardening-off stage already.

gherks

I'm pretty comfortable with tomatoes and mine this year seem to be doing well.  But I planted all these other things that I've never tried before, like the gherkins above.  Cucumbers??  I have no idea what I'm doing.  They seem to be growing, though.  And on that note, THE BEAN:

bean in all its transplanted glory

This is another case when I didn't really know what I was doing.  I just went along and planted these beans and then hey, only one came up!  Turns out I should have soaked them overnight first.  But luckily the strongest bean in the world is growing right along and now has beans:

beans!

Now I am wondering if I should come up with some sort of contraption to keep the birds/squirrels/cats/racoons out of the raised bed or just hope for the best.  And maybe I need some irrigation?  Oh the possibilities!

Hello, supporters of the South Philly Food Co-op! Once again thanks your all of your words of encouragement, your participation in our many outreach and fund-raising events AND especially your membership in the Co-op. If you haven't joined yet then thanks for the first two things and we're looking forward to having you as a member soon. The Board of Directors of the Co-op takes its responsibility as the stewards of your member equity very seriously and to that end seeks to be as open and transparent as possible about all the work being done on behalf of the members to open a store. One of the ways the Co-op does this is by sharing the reports they receive each month from the various committees. These reports offer a concise and informative insider view of the various projects and goals being pursued by the Bookkeeping, Membership, Programs and Events, Marketing and Communications, Legal, Real Estate, Leadership, Business Outreach, Grants, IT, Speakers Bureau and Operations committees. Click this link to view or download a PDF of the April committee reports. If you have any questions, feel free to post them as a comment to this blog post OR email [email protected]. What's another way to get all the latest news about the Co-op? Come to our May general membership meeting on Sunday, May 19. (Details here.) Whether you're a member or not, you are welcome to the meeting so you can find out as much you want to know about our efforts to date and take part in (if a member) or witness (if not) the process of voting for our board members.

Finally the weather is warm and soon I'll be putting all these guys outside:

black krims peeking out the window

In their soon-to-be new home!

better than a bathtub!

Ten feet long by three feet wide means space for lots of veggies and soon there will be a trellis on the wall for giganto-bean, cucumbers and tomatoes.  Exciting!  But there are lots of other things coming back out too, like a little ginkgo:

hi friendly ginkgo

That little thing spent the winter looking like a stick stuck in the ground but I figured if these trees have been around since the dinosaurs they must be pretty tough.  Same (except for the dinosaurs part) goes for the mint:

mint

This mint has been planted and dug up and replanted so many times I've lost count.  But now they are in a big container so that my entire backyard doesn't turn into a mint forest.

And some bulbs finally came out!

a mix of lots of things containing blue squill, eranthis, crocuses and others I've forgotten

Winter Wolf's Bane:

otherwise known as winter aconite or eranthis but obviously winter wolf's bane is the best name

The Winter Wolf's Bane even looks good after it's done flowering:

little flower lions manes

And here is one little blue squill in the deceased bathtub (RIP):

pitiful?

I also have lots of blackberries, raspberries and strawberries but that "wing" of the yard is not done yet.  Soon!

And they need your help! In partnership with South Philly High, LoMo has launched a fundraising campaign for a new SPHS campus master plan which would create what would be Philly's first public school rooftop farm, right in South Philly. With the plan to work with a local landscape architecture firm and expand to the roof, they'd be able to produce a massive amount of food for the neighborhood. Help fund this project here!

The 2013 Spring General Membership meeting will be held on Sunday, May 19, 2013 from 3:30 - 6 p.m. in the Community Room at PEP (Programs Employing People) located at 1200 South Broad Street (Broad & Federal Streets), Philadelphia, PA 19146.

The agenda for the meeting can be found HERE. Apart from getting updates from the various committees (including real estate site selection!), elections for six board members will occur at the meeting. You can see the list of nominees and get other voting information HERE.

Not able to make it to the meeting on May 19th? Fret not. You can vote by absentee ballot. Click HERE to download the ballot. Please note, however, that your ballot must be received in the mail by  5:00 p.m. Friday, May 17, 2013 to be counted. Send absentee ballots to:

Election Committee
South Philly Food Co-op
PO Box 31506
Philadelphia, PA 19147.

For those of you able to make it to the meeting, light refreshments will be made available. As always, there will be community spirit and friendliness to spare. Come on out on May 19th for a couple hours of community, updates, voting, and overall growth of the South Philly Food Co-op.

 

Celebrate the Co-op and the success of our 75 day membership drive that began February 15. Find out how many members we've gained (hint: it's more than our goal of 75) and meet fellow member-owners.

Admission of $7.50 goes to the Co-op's efforts to open our community-owned grocery store. You'll receive a wristband for drink specials from Fountain Porter, as well as a raffle ticket toward door prizes from many our great local businesses. Plus, you'll receive one additional FREE raffle ticket for each member you've referred during the 75 in 75 campaign!

Event: 75 in 75 Celebration
Date: Tuesday, April 30, 6-9pm
Location: Fountain Porter, 1601 S. 10th Street at Tasker
Cost: $7.50 to be collected at the door (No RSVP required but feel free to let everyone know you're going by joining the event on Facebook.)

Congratulations to Hayden N. who gets a gift card to The Expressive Hand (a Shop South Philly partner) for taking the Co-op's member survey! After joining the Co-op our members receive a phone call from one of our board members welcoming them and asking them whether there is anything the new member would like to ask about or suggest. We follow that up by emailing a brief survey to get to know new members better and to ask for their feedback in a few key areas.  It is absolutely one of the easiest, least time consuming things a new member can do to help the Co-op. Our board values the insights they get from the members since, after all, the members own the Co-op and have the ultimate authority in how it is and will be run. These are just a couple of the ways that the board reaches out to hear from members. (The general membership meeting - May 19, 2013 3:30pm - 6:00pm, PEP Community Room, 1200 South Broad Street - is another.) Have you taken the survey yet? Keep an eye on your inbox for the survey link. We'll be sending out an email to members with the survey link. And even though helping out the Co-op is its own reward, we're also offering everyone who completes the survey additional chances to win prizes from other Shop South Philly partners (including one of three $10 gift certificates to Wishing Well!)

 

 

Programs Employing People (PEP) will having upcoming spring plant sale Wednesday May 1 through Saturday May 4th 10 am -  6pm.