I think that we gardeners all want something a little different from our green spaces.  For me, it was tw0-fold.  I wanted the sense of bringing fresh vegetables from the garden to the kitchen that I had when I was growing up in Westmoreland County.  And I wanted to conceal the concrete-block walls with living greenery -- especially in the gray winter months.  On top of that, my family wanted a cozy spot to enjoy some outdoor hanging out.  I've found it's not impossible to get all this, but it takes time, careful space management, and planning.  I'd like to share with you some of the things that worked for me.  (As well as a few cautionary tales.) 

See this and other neighborhood gardens on the Second Annual South Philly Food Co-op Garden Tour, on Sat., Sept. 8, 2012 (raindate Sun., Sept. 9, 2012) from 1-5 p.m. Tickets can be purchased online at our eventbrite.com page or at these locations:

• • Urban Jungle, 1526 E. Passyunk Avenue

 

• • Ultimo Coffee, 1900 South 15th St.

 

• • Grindcore House, 1515 S. 4th St.

The Garden Tour will be a self-guided ticketed event, and will feature over 20 public and private gardens throughout South Philadelphia. Participating gardens will have their doors/gates open for the duration of the event, and will have someone available to greet visitors, show them around and answer questions. RSVP on Facebook here.

This is one of many fundraisers that will help us raise the funds for a site analysis of potential store locations. Help us make it a success – buy tickets for yourself, your friends and your family! And, if you haven’t yet joined, meet some of our member-owners and please consider joining now!

It's somewhere down there!

Here's a fun fact... one of the gardens on this year's South Philly Garden Tour is located on the roof of a building that is taller than anything else within a mile! The lucky owners of this home have a view that rivals anything those folks in the (ahem) Residences at Two Liberty Place have. (You can't see Two Liberty Place from Two Liberty Place, can you? A ha!)

You'll go up 66 steps from the street to the garden to catch site of an urban oasis that you'll only ever be able to see again on Google Maps. (Unless, that is, you become buddies with the home owners!)

See this and other neighborhood gardens on the Second Annual South Philly Food Co-op Garden Tour, on Sat., Sept. 8, 2012 (raindate Sun., Sept. 9, 2012) from 1-5 p.m. Tickets can be purchased online at our eventbrite.com page or at these locations:

• Urban Jungle, 1526 E. Passyunk Avenue
• Ultimo Coffee, 1900 South 15th St.
• Grindcore House, 1515 S. 4th St.

The Garden Tour will be a self-guided ticketed event, and will feature over 20 public and private gardens throughout South Philadelphia. Participating gardens will have their doors/gates open for the duration of the event, and will have someone available to greet visitors, show them around and answer questions. RSVP on Facebook here.

This is one of many fundraisers that will help us raise the funds for a site analysis of potential store locations. Help us make it a success – buy tickets for yourself, your friends and your family! And, if you haven’t yet joined, meet some of our member-owners and please consider joining now!

Paolone Park, the approximately 30-year-old sliver of greenspace tucked down one of South Philly's quaintest blocks, is a marvel of community collaboration. Neighbors created—and work together to maintain—this miniature wonderland of trees, flowers and well-manicured shrubbery, volunteering time, energy, plants and money toward upkeep of this hidden gem.

In 2007, the park was further beautified when neighbors worked with iconic mosaic artist Isaiah Zagar to cover the back walls of several houses on Medina street with one of his trademark tile, glass and mirror works.

See this and other neighborhood gardens on the Second Annual South Philly Food Co-op Garden Tour, on Sat., Sept. 8, 2012 (raindate Sun., Sept. 9, 2012) from 1-5 p.m. Tickets can be purchased online at our eventbrite.com page or at these locations:

• • Urban Jungle, 1526 E. Passyunk Avenue

 

• • Ultimo Coffee, 1900 South 15th St.

 

• • Grindcore House, 1515 S. 4th St.

The Garden Tour will be a self-guided ticketed event, and will feature over 20 public and private gardens throughout South Philadelphia. Participating gardens will have their doors/gates open for the duration of the event, and will have someone available to greet visitors, show them around and answer questions. RSVP on Facebook here.

This is one of many fundraisers that will help us raise the funds for a site analysis of potential store locations. Help us make it a success – buy tickets for yourself, your friends and your family! And, if you haven’t yet joined, meet some of our member-owners and please consider joining now!

Just a really quick reminder that through August 31 (which is THIS FRIDAY), our friends at the Energy Co-op will donate $20 to the South Philly Food Co-op for each household that joins and mentions the South Philly Food Co-op  as their referral.

The Energy Co-op is a member-owned, not-for-profit, service-driven energy provider that promotes efficient energy use and the use of renewable energy; provides energy cost savings, education and advocacy on behalf of its members; and, of course, supports cooperative movements.

Learn more about The Energy Co-op at their web site (full disclosure: yours truly is a member), and if you want to join, you can do it HERE (just remember the South Philly Food Co-op sent ya!) And, of course, if you haven't yet joined the South Philly Food Co-op and have been thinking you'd like to, well, now would be a great time to do that, too ;)

 

Harry O's Passyunk Gardens is sure to be a hot spot on September 8's Second Annual South Philly Food Co-op Garden Tour -- it's gorgeously lush, eye-catching, and a much-needed slice of greenery amid the Cheesesteak Vegas that is the corner of Wharton and Passyunk. Plus, there's the Rachael Ray factor -- the Queen of EVOO herself is the one responsible for bringing this urban garden to South Philly.

Designed by landscape architect Dean Hill and built by the Rachael Ray Show in August 2011 as the backdrop for the taping of the "Great Philly Grill-Off," Harry O's Passyunk Gardens became, in a matter of mere days, a fully functioning raised-bed garden containing 16 raised beds, a vertical flowerbed, 2,869-gallon rainwater cisterns and an iron fence, according to Peter Crimmins' Aug. 30, 2011, report on WHYY/Newsworks. After taping, the show's producers left the garden to be maintained by the Camden Children's Garden and Passyunk Square Civic Association.

The garden operates as a collective, with everyone sharing the planting duties and the harvest; all food is donated to neighbors who come by on Sundays, with any surplus going to local food pantries.

See this and other neighborhood gardens on the Second Annual South Philly Food Co-op Garden Tour, on Sat., Sept. 8, 2012 (raindate Sun., Sept. 9, 2012) from 1-5 p.m. Tickets can be purchased online at http://southphillygardentour.eventbrite.com/ or at these locations:

Urban Jungle, 1526 E. Passyunk Avenue
Ultimo Coffee, 1900 South 15th St.,
Grindcore House, 1515 S. 4th St.

The Garden Tour will be a self-guided ticketed event, and will feature over 20 public and private gardens throughout South Philadelphia. Participating gardens will have their doors/gates open for the duration of the event, and will have someone available to greet visitors, show them around and answer questions.

This is one of many fundraisers that will help us raise the funds for a site analysis of potential store locations. Help us make it a success - buy tickets for yourself, your friends and your family! And, if you haven't yet joined, meet some of our member-owners and please consider joining now!

No one will likely confuse South Philadelphia for the rolling hills of Oxfordshire, but that didn’t stop Historic City Gardens, a decade-old organization that creates unique “concept gardens” in order to help make Philly more green, from planting an English-style garden a stone’s throw from the Mummers’ golden-slippered stomping grounds. In fact, it was the Joker’s Mummers Club, along with other volunteers and neighbors that helped with creating the garden, after an earlier one deteriorated. This English style garden’s design was inspired by frilly women's fashions, which is suggested by the tiered nearly symmetrical layout and the use of red, yellow and lavender pink flowers, as well as woody plants.

See this and other neighborhood gardens on the Second Annual South Philly Food Co-op Garden Tour, on Sat., Sept. 8, 2012 (raindate Sun., Sept. 9, 2012) from 1-5 p.m. Tickets can be purchased online at http://southphillygardentour.eventbrite.com/ or at these locations:

Urban Jungle, 1526 E. Passyunk Avenue
Ultimo Coffee, 1900 South 15th St.,
Grindcore House, 1515 S. 4th St.

The Garden Tour will be a self-guided ticketed event, and will feature over 20 public and private gardens throughout South Philadelphia. Participating gardens will have their doors/gates open for the duration of the event, and will have someone available to greet visitors, show them around and answer questions.

This is one of many fundraisers that will help us raise the funds for a site analysis of potential store locations. Help us make it a success - buy tickets for yourself, your friends and your family! And, if you haven't yet joined, meet some of our member-owners and please consider joining now!

 

 

I can't tell you how excited I am for this year's Garden Tour coming up at 1pm on Saturday, September 8 (rain date: 9/9). Our Garden Tour Committee has done an absolutely amazing job finding and recruiting over 20 urban oases to be a part of this year's tour, most of which were not on the tour last year. We listened to the feedback that participants gave us last year and put the focus of the 2012 tour on home and private gardens at homes and businesses. Over the next two weeks (that's right - the tour is only two weeks from TODAY), our team of bloggers will be bringing you previews of what's the come. I'm lucky enough to get to kick things off with one stop that I'm making a priority when I do the tour. Anna Maria and Carmen Vona have owned and operated Carmana Designs, Ltd., a high-end cabinetmaking and mill shop for 31 years. They have been at their McKean Street location for the past 12 years and after extensively renovating the 30,000 sq. ft. facility, they had little funds left for landscaping the quaint cobblestone courtyard. A low loading dock in the courtyard provided a haven for loiterers who left trash behind. They creatively solved both issues with salvaged concrete flower planters from the Bellevue Stratford Hotel, free compost from the City and lots of shrubs, plants and flowers. Today the cobblestone courtyard cascades with sweet potato vine, black-eyed susans azaleas, lilies, petunias, geraniums, mums, clematis, salvia, vinca, ornamental grasses and herbs. The unsavory characters who used to frequent the space have been displaced by Monarch butterflies and even praying mantises. So don't wait. Get your tickets today. Save yourself $5 by buying in advance. Tickets are $20 and available at Urban Jungle, (1526 E. Passyunk Avenue), Ultimo Coffee (1900 South 15th St.), Grindcore House (1515 S. 4th St.), and online.

Gather up your favorite blanket, lawn chairs and picnic basket and join the South Philly Food Co-op, LoMo Civic Association and Scribe Video Center on Wed., Aug. 29, from 7-10 p.m. for Food Fest Movie Night, a FREE family-friendly outdoor film screening at South Philly High! (RSVP here.)

The night, part of Scribe's Street Movies program, will feature short independent films that tell stories of urban gardens, bees and, of course, good food!

Plus, attendees will get to tour the South Philly High Gardens with LoMo members before the films begin. Short tours will be given every 15 minutes from 7:00 - 7:30 pm.

There will also be a live opening performance by Philly musician Alexa Gold, popcorn, garden-inspired refreshments and Little Baby's Ice Cream!

For the full line-up of fantastic films, visit: www.scribe.org/events/streetmoviessouthphiladelphiahighschool

Scribe's Street Movies program is made possible by PNC Arts Alive. For more info, visit: scribe.org.

To RSVP and share with your friends and neighbors, please visit our Facebook event page.

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.

eggplant, tomatoes and peppers

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:

still pretty yellow

Somewhere along the line they must have decided they liked the tub so by August 4th they were looking fuller and needed more staking:

much more green!

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:

tomatoes always take over, but the eggplant and peppers are holding their own

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:

pepper!

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!