The tomato harvest has started!  Here are some:

None of them are all that large:  here are the two largest in my hand for scale

These are the two biggest tomatoes I've gotten so far - all the earlier ones were smaller.  I'm not too worried about the size because we all know that fruit grown without chemical fertilizers and pesticides is smaller, right?  Thought so.  And there are more tomatoes coming!

I realize that lots of the tomatoes in the above picture look like that perfect shade of tomato red but apparently (one of) the drawbacks of relying solely on the iPhone camera is that it does not pick up colors well.  I've noticed that lighting is really important to making my photos look good (I should say better) and natural light is best, which is why my pictures are always taken outside.  And for some reason a broad spectrum of red gets reduced down to a nice, bright cherry red instead of the nuanced, orangey colors it really is.  So while these tomatoes on the vine may look just as red and delicious as the ones I've already picked, I'm actually leaving them to ripen a bit longer so they can get reach full growth.

But!  Not everything is coming up roses.  This little guy, for instance, got pretty dry the other day and is now a bit wrinkly:

so we'll see how that goes.  On the whole, though, the crop looks pretty good - no more blossom end rot or rot of any kind (fingers crossed!) and only a few of them are having issues with the skin splitting.  And I'm still waiting on my Beauty Queens...

I know I keep saying this, but I am going to make some changes to the tomato set-up once it is, well, bearable to go out there again and I'm not at work.  In the meantime let's look at some other garden residents.  First up:  sunflowers!

You are some tall monsters, sunflowers!  They're probably over 6' now - the raised bed they're in is a little less than a foot tall but they are way taller than me and would be even without that extra foot.  And I'm 5'9"...

And Mr. Fig is also doing well I think:

I am particularly fond of Mr. Fig because I tried to grow one last year and after surviving the summer I put it in a cooler, dark place (as I was instructed) for the winter and all the leaves fell off.  Which was what they were supposed to do - figs need to be dormant in the winter to produce fruit (or something - I have a long list of meticulously-typed instructions on growing figs from some fig grower in Massachusetts but my eyes start glazing over every time I try to read it) so I didn't water it that often and when I did I felt a little silly because it looked like I had just stuck a dead twig in a pot of dirt and was misguidedly caring for it.  But then!  One day this spring!  When I was dutifully watering it along with many many tomato seedlings, I noticed a bud on the tip of the stem!  Amazing!  So I continued to water and the bud got bigger and greener and looked like it was about to open when...it just stopped growing.  I kept on watering it and even put it outside once all threat of frost was gone but alas the poor thing did not make it.  I thought it was particularly cruel that it started to come back but then apparently gave up.  Come on!

Fig #2 seems to be doing better but we'll see.  I even gave it a stake!

And lastly, my search for garden kitsch has taken me the seashell route...well maybe it was spending time on the beach.  But regardless, I now have shells!

Since I don't grow flowers in a bed frame (FLOWER BED, GET IT?) or a toilet or a sink or a tire or have one of those wooden things that looks like a person bent over (surprisingly a Google search of "garden butt" didn't turn up what I was thinking of...) I have to get my creative side out somewhere, right?  Shells all around!  I am also collecting donations of plastic or ceramic animals to live in my little jungle.  I'm sure I won't regret saying that nothing is too tasteless!  And some day I'll get one of those rocks that says "Sarah's Garden"...

See you next week, hopefully with a slightly more substantial post!

Are you a lover of farming, cycling, and the heat? If so, break out your bike, as many water bottles as you can, and head on up to Mt. Airy for tomorrow's Weaver's Way Co-op Urban Farm Bike Tour.

We’ve added lots of new farms this year, and will continue our tradition of hosting two rides: one for “beginners” without as much bike riding experience, or who prefer a shorter ride and one for more experienced riders who can manage a longer ride at a bit faster pace. Two rides, short and long, both rides begin and end at Weavers Way Co-op Farm in East Mt. Airy. See below for the route for each ride. And the party at the end will be a great reward for all your effort . Online registration is now available. Whether you plan on paying on the day of the ride $30, or in advance $25/Co-op members; $28/all others, you need to use the online registration form to sign in. You’ll be given the choice of paying by credit card using our PayPal processing account or selecting “pay at the door.” You’ll also be able to register and pay for up to 6 addition family and friends.

It's a great bike ride through Philadelphia's unique and vibrant neighborhoods; visiting several urban farms in Kensington, South Philly, North Philly, West Philly, Germantown, Roxborough & Mt. Airy; inspiring talks with Philadelphia's pioneering urban farmers; and an incredible feast of grilled foods and beer at the end. Ride starts and ends at Weavers Way Co-op's Mort Brooks Farm in E. Mt. Airy, 1011 E. Washington Lane, Phila, PA 19138. Registration for the long ride is at 8 AM with the ride to begin at 8:30. Registration for the short ride is at 8:45 am with the ride to begin at 9:15. UPDATE: Because of the excessive heat, both rides have been shortened to 18.5 miles for the short ride and 25 for the long ride. The ride should end by 2 pm and don't worry, plenty of water, gatorade and snacks will be provided.

July's final Music (and Food) in the Park event with Gold Star Park will take place next Thursday (7/28) at 7PM. Bring a blanket or chairs and enjoy the music of Railroad Fever. We'll also have a selection of local fruit and veggies for you to sample. The music and veggie/fruit tasting start at 7pm. Gold Star Park is located on Wharton Street, between 6th and 7th Streets. (Click here for a link to a map.) The Co-op will be providing samples of in-season fruits and vegetables for everyone to taste. Bring your friends, bring your neighbors, bring your kids – this is a great way to become familiar with what is in-season in our region and maybe try something new. We will also feature a blind “Taste-Test” pitting Local/Organic versus conventional produce. Do you think you can tell the difference? (Hint: you probably can!) Special thanks to Friends of Goldstar Park for arranging the music, Pennsylvania Horticulture Society for providing the grant to purchase the produce, and to Birchtree Catering for sourcing and cutting up the veggies and fruit.

Hello again!  I took off last week for a much-needed vacation.  Because sometimes you just need to see something like this for a couple of days.  It was relaxing and lovely but I failed to mention to Dan that I did indeed have someone to water for me (thanks, roommate!) and she did a superb job so I came home to this:

but wouldn't it have been funny if I just let them all die?  Naw, I love my monkeys too much for that.  In fact, I bought them a brand new (ok, used actually) pot so some of the smaller eggplants can stretch their legs/roots a bit.  Buying a used pot at a thrift store is so much cheaper than buying one new and almost all thrift stores and flea markets have some even if they're kinda hidden under other things.

But on to the garden!  It's hothothot out there but with everyday watering the plants seem to be doing just fine.  My sunflowers have grown quite tall (about 5' now!) so hopefully there will be flowers soon:

And there are lots of tomatoes, including this nice yellowish one which has since turned orange:

and of course, lots of green tomatoes:

Next up is this little lovely:

The PHS women who came to judge my garden told me that this is blight.  Here's some more information about blight on tomato plants.  Since blight is fungal it's pretty common to get it on plants that are maybe a little too close together (cough cough my garden cough) so I'm not really surprised.  For now I've just snipped off all the leaves and branches that looked blighted and moved it away from the other plants to try to stop the spread of blight.  The tricky thing about blight is that since it is fungal you want to make sure not to compost any blighted plant parts because the fungus will continue to grow and contaminate the rest of your compost.  You also want to make sure you wash your hands thoroughly after touching blighted plants because it can be spread through touch, too.  Here is the plant in question sans blight (hopefully):

I still have it apart from the rest of the tomatoes until it can learn to play well with others...or until it looks nice and healthy again.  This weekend (if it's not too hot) I plan on trying to give all the tomatoes a little more space and trimming more leaves that look a little blight-y (like the leaves around that yellow tomato above.)

Lastly I wanted to tell you about something cool:  the South Philly Food Co-op is hosting its first annual Garden Tour and my lovely garden will be a stop on it!  Tickets cost $20 and will benefit the co-op.  It sounds pretty fun if you like peeking into people's private spaces (that sounded creepier than I planned, let's go with seeing what people do with their space) and it's self-guided, so you just get a map and can wander around without worrying about a big group.  I'll be at my garden all day and I'd love to meet some people who have maybe been reading this but have never seen my garden in person (all one or two of you?)  Anyway, all the details are here and I urge you all to come and hang out with me!  I'm fun, but I'm sure you've gathered that from all my posts, right?

Sorry this is kind of short; I'm still catching up from my vacation and also have some sort of weird sickness that enables me to sleep through people loudly playing music in the next room...oh wait, I do that anyway.  But I'll leave you with the promise that I'll do some garden work this weekend and a picture of some tomatoes I took after the brief rain the other day.  Beauties!

 

Calling all you Betty Crockers and pastry-chef wannabees, or just lovers of chocolate and all things dessert. Bring your best sweet creation to the Gold Star Park and enter to win the first ever SPFC Dessert Throw Down - you could go down in history. A prize worthy of dessert awesomeness will be awarded. The prize is $25 gift certificate to Fante's. Even if you don't win best of show, going home with a belly full of yummy treats is a good consolation prize! We will also have volunteers available to answer your questions about our progress and accept new member-owners (so bring your checkbook). Five people joined up at least week's event. Let's see if we can get five more! For your listening enjoyment Gold Star Park welcomes The Knife & Fork Band (according to their website: Too unpredictable for “folk,” too loud for “acoustic,” too unpretentious for “indie,” too complicated for “punk,” too rough for “chamber-pop,” and more band than “singer-songwriter”). Dessert-judging (and tasting) and the music get started at 7 PM. Remember to stay hydrated!

Join the South Philly Food Co-op for its 1st Annual South Philly Garden Tour! Help us celebrate all the hard work of some of your neighbors, enjoy some the greening efforts in South Philly, AND support the Co-op all at the same time!

1st Annual South Philly Garden Tour Saturday, September 10, 2011 (Raindate September 11, 2011) 11:00am-3:00pm

Check-in begins at 10:30am at Urban Jungle (1526 East Passyunk Avenue) to pick up tour map and details. The Garden Tour will be a self-guided ticketed event, and will feature over 18 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 you, show you around, and answer questions.  Local businesses will provide refreshments stops throughout the day. Tickets are $20 in advance or $25 on the day of, and are currently on sale at:

• Urban Jungle, 1526 E. Passyunk Avenue
• Grindcore House, 1515 S. 4th Street
• Ultimo Coffee Bar, 1900 S. 15th Street
• Online

This is one of many fundraisers that will help us raise the funds necessary for conducting a market analysis, and eventually opening a storefront here in South Philly. Help us make it a success - buy tickets for yourself, your friends, and your family! If you need additional information, please email [email protected].

Adam Forbes at the Nationalities Service Center's Refugee Urban Farm Project sent put out a request for donations (of produce) that we are happy to pass along. NSC is setting up a loose gleaning/food distribution network for our refugee families in South Philadelphia. The Growing Home Community Gardens are a great community space and have provided a lot of fresh food to the Bhutanese and Burmese refugees. (To read more about them and to see a picture of the garden at 700 Emily Street in action check out this South Philly Review article from a few weeks ago). Unfortunately, they can only grow so much produce on their small lots and the families are desperate for more produce. If any of you urban farmers or gardeners out there happen to end up with a lot of extra produce that you can't sell or donate - please consider donating it to the Bhutanese and Burmese families! They already gleaned some holey greens, turnips, extra squash and hot peppers from other farms and it has gone very well. Please contact Adam at forbesfarmer (at) yahoo.com if you have any questions or would ever be willing to donate produce that you grew. He could arrange to come pick it up from you. The Growing Home Garden is among the many gardens we are in conversations with to be part of the South Philly Food Co-op 2011 Garden Tour on September 10 (mark your calendar... more info to follow). Please consider supporting them any way you can.

Here we are, in the throes of summer heat! Personally, I love the all the food that comes with summer. Whether you’re talking about a fresh tomato, juicy watermelon, or a grilled piece of meat, I’m all about it. It’s great to be eating and drinking al fresco too, but when the temperatures climb close to 100 degrees, it’s just too hot to do anything, let alone cook in a hot kitchen. But you have to eat, you can’t eat take-out every night, and who has the energy to cook when it’s so stupid hot outside?

This dish is an almost no-cook meal, especially if you buy a grocery store rotisserie chicken. Great for a summer time dinner or to pack for your honey’s lunch. It goes together in a few minutes.

Serve on pumpernickel with some tender butter lettuce or watercress. And some potato chips. What? I love chips.

Apricot Almond Chicken Salad with Lemon Poppy Buttermilk Dressing
Serves 5-6 people

• 1.5 lbs bone-in skin-on chicken breasts (usually 2 breasts, or buy a whole chicken from the deli section of your grocery)
• 1.5 tsp kosher salt
• 1 tbsp canola oil
• fresh ground black pepper

1. Dry brine your chicken breasts by rubbing the salt all over them and resting in the fridge for 3-4 hours. Then dry off the chicken and season with canola oil and pepper.
2. Preheat oven to 400 degrees and roast your chicken for 40 minutes or until it reaches 163 degrees. Don’t worry it’ll keep cooking, and you chicken will be perfect and moist.
3. Chill the chicken. Or if you are using a grocery store chicken...you are here already.
4. Pull the chicken off the bone and large dice. Place in a medium bowl with....

• 10 dried apricots, thinly sliced
• 1/4 cup toasted almonds, sliced or slivered
• 2 green onions, thinly sliced
• 2 tbsp parsley, chopped
• 1/3 cup celery, finely diced

Stir together the following to make the yummy dressing and combine with the chicken and other ingredients:

• 1/2 cup mayonnaise
• 1/4 cup sour cream
• 3 tbsp buttermilk
• 3/4 tsp lemon zest
• 3 tsp poppy seeds
• 1/2 tsp fresh black pepper
• 1/2 tsp kosher salt

That's it. Enjoy!

Let's talk seafood. 

Have you seen Otolith at your farmers market and wondered what it was all about?  We were curious last summer and found out that they are a CSA for seafood - or CSS (Community Sponsored Seafood).  There are several different sustainably harvested fish programs you can participant in such as salmon, sablefish, Dungeness crab, and halibut.  Last year we decided to order salmon and loved every bit of it.  We received 15 lbs of line caught wild salmon from Alaska for $180 - 5 lbs. of Coho, 5 lbs. of King, 3 lbs. of Sockeye and 2 lbs. of Pink. 

Salmon is full of Omega-3 fats and other nutrients lacking in farm-raised "Atlantic" salmon.  One of additional perks is that we pay less than retail price for the best quality. Salmon similar to this would sell for about $18/lb. at a Whole Foods.  The fish is cleaned, portioned out, flash frozen at -40 degrees and arrives to us vacuum sealed at our farmers market.  It's the best!

This year, we decided to get both salmon and sablefish (Black Cod).  We just picked up our first bit of the sablefish and I baked it spanish style with olive oil, lime juice, fresh tomatoes, red onions, and homegrown jalapeno.  It was so delicious that I have a feeling it will be a staple dinner in our house this summer.

For more information about signing up for your own share, please visit Otolith's website.  They also have a store that you can visit by appointment, I promise you won't be disappointed!

After a little setback dealt by Mother Nature last week, the Music in the Park series is a go for tonight at Gold Star Park. The park, located at 6th and Wharton, underwent major transformation this spring and now has a fabulous green space perfect for an evening of food and music! The South Philly Food Co-op is partnering to bring food fun to the well-established summer music series organized by Friends of Gold Star Park. We’ll also have membership applications and volunteers on-hand to answer questions. Bring your checkbook or your credit card and join the co-op on the spot! Every Thursday in July at 7pm join South Philly Food Co-op, Gold Star Park, and your neighbors Music (and Food) in the Park. Tonight features music by The Philadelphia Ukulele Orchestra. Food will be provided by you (and me and all of us). It's a potluck! I already know that Alison and I are bringing along a cold sesame noodle dish and judging from Cassie's latest Facebook pictures there will be some yummy almond blossom cookies. Bring something tasty to share - meet and mingle with your neighbors and like-minded folks interested in food, community, and music.