I'm back!  And so is my garden (okay, that never went anywhere) and now I have figs!

To be honest, I'm not sure what kind of figs these are so I'm just kind of waiting to see.  I don't even think I like figs!  But I won't make a final judgement call on that one until I eat my first home-grown fig.

The rest of the garden is pretty quiet.  The cooler weather and cloudy skies haven't brought everything to a halt, but the difference from mid-summer is amazing.  On those hot, steamy July days you can almost see things growing right before your eyes.  In the spirit of that (and fall is always a time of reflection for me) let's take a look back at my garden's progress through these past few months.

Here's when I first started moving my tomatoes outside, May 1st.

And here's the tomato patch on May 11th:

And here's the first flower:

Here's May 22nd:

Here's May 31st and they're starting to grow over the wall...

And here's June 2nd, with lots of flowers and some tomatoes:

Here's another June 2nd shot, starting to fill out a bit:

This is June 16th:

Here's June 20th with the first tomato turning red:

This is July 4th, with new stakes:

Here's July 26th full of tomatoes:

By August 15th, things were getting pretty big:

And here's August 31st:

It's all been pretty interesting and I think it's good to look back once in a while and remember when I just started.  Even more impressive than the tomatoes are the sunflowers, I think - they grew so fast!  Maybe I'll take a look at them next week.

This weekend I plan on cleaning up some things (I'm looking at you, sunflowers) and transplant my little swiss chard and kale.  Stay tuned!

Sarah DeGiorgis has lived in Philly for five years and is finally starting to feel like a true Philadelphian, though she still detests cheesesteaks.  She enjoys reading, watching bad tv, eating and cooking good food and digging in the dirt. Catch up with her continuing efforts to grow food in South Philly by clicking here.

I had the great pleasure of staffing a table at the Dickinson Square Park Farmer's Market yesterday morning on what started as a hot, close, humid morning; transitioned into a partly sunny, breezy day; and ended with a fighter jet flying so low overhead I could practically read the pilot's driver's license. (Anyone in Pennsport at the time knows what I'm talking about!) With me at the table was Matt, a new co-op volunteer and soon to be new homeowner over in the Newbold neighborhood (which, he said with a smile, is called Point Breeze by people who hear what his address is). We had plenty of folks stop by the table and answer my opening question of "Have you heard of the South Philly Food Co-op?" with various levels of recognition from "Of course and I'm sending my check for member-ownership soon" to "We're in South Philly?" (just kidding). Matt is making the move with his girlfriend down from Weaver's Way territory in Mt. Airy to South Philly. As we were talking with a passerby I introduced Matt as a soon-to-be South Philadelphian and he said that one of the factors in figuring out where to move was the fact that there will soon be a food co-op in the area. He loves being a member and shopping at Weaver's Way and was thrilled to hear about our efforts to open a cooperatively owned grocery store in South Philly. I was floored. Now there's somebody who is taking a much bigger leap of faith than I am. My household only had to put down $200 on this yet-to-open co-op while he's putting down roots in the neighborhood and purchasing a house, in part, because of it. Granted, there were plenty of other factors in the decision making but the fact that a co-op will be opening soon made the decision that much easier. Hearing that just made my day and kept making my day even as the Eagles were coughing up a late-game lead and Antonio Bastardo continued to pitch like... well... me. Just imagine a near future in which neighbors and friends are pitching the attractiveness of their neighborhood and including "and there's a food co-op" as one of the positives. Realtors will start including the bullet point "- easy access to the South Philly Food Co-op." And open houses will include food trays prepared "by the community" at the South Philly Food Co-op. The shops and restaurants along E. Passyunk Avenue, the Water Department's streetscape improvements on 13th Street, the improving test scores and education at the neighborhood schools and the beautiful work being done at the neighborhood's various parks and playgrounds are all making South Philly a great, hot place to be for the long term. The co-op, by strengthening the community even more, can play a big part in that progress as well. Several other people who stopped by the table picked up member-owner applications, many of whom I have a pretty good feeling about in terms of how likely they are to follow through and join up. And Matt took another leap yesterday by becoming member-owner #96. That's 11 new members since just last week when we started our drive to 250, the number we'll need so we can start the process of looking for a location. Why don't you jump in too? After all, presumably you already in live in South Philly so you don't need to buy a house. All you have to do is fill out a member-owner application and make the first payment toward your $200 member-owner equity. You'll become one o our 250 Founding Members and help to make the future of South Philadelphia happen. (And, hey, no matter where you are, if you want to move to South Philly and become a member... we say "Welcome to the neighborhood!"... but you better hurry!)

It's time for an update on the progress the South Philly Food Co-op is making on our attempt to open a cooperatively owned grocery store in South Philadephia. I could write a long missive about how we've been setting some goals for the next six months and working with professionals to write a business plan and do a market analysis and feasibility study. But why spend all that time when the good folks at Naked Philly did it for us in a recent story about us! Check out that link for some details on our immediate goals for the next 6 months, including reference to our own magic number of 250 - the number of member-owner households we want to have before we start the process of looking for a location. We'll be sharing more about our goals, next steps and accomplishments at our first member meeting on October 17 at The Church of the Trinity, 2300 S. 18th Street (on 18th Street between Wolf and Ritner). You can sign up to be a member-owner on the spot and participate in the meeting. The agenda for the meeting is here.

Hi folks! Sarah is taking the week off from writing about her awesome garden this week. She assures us that it is still thriving and that she is getting ready for the fall harvest. We'll have another installment of Sarah's Garden next week for your enjoyment. In the meantime, we should mention that Sarah herself is a a member-owner of the South Philly Food Co-op. Join Sarah and our other fantastic blogging member-owners (like Rose) and become a member-owner today. You can be counted as one of our 250 Founding Members and get us to our next goal which will allow us to start the process of - get this - looking for a location! Click here to find out how to join. And don't think that other people are going to get this done for you. If you don't join, there's a reasonably good chance that this co-op just won't happen.

Treehugger shared the video below because of how proud they were that their website appeared, however briefly, on screen. (Hey, I'd do the same if SouthPhillyFoodCoop.org appeared in a video produced by Google!)

The video is one of several "Search Stories" produced by Google to demonstrate how internet searching helped some cool thing happen. (Any time they want to profile South Philly Food Co-op for when Alison first searched "how to start a food co-op," we're ready.) Anyway, my point in sharing the video is because of one other similarly short moment in which the hero of our story mentions that he got his idea to start the solar energy company (or whatever it is) from his friend who is the manager of the food co-op in Ypsilanti. Footage of the Ypsilanti Food Co-op is included. (I really do love the name Ypsilanti.) [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gK7lUK0711E]

My point in bringing this up is to show the potential that a Food Co-op can be a place where dedicated, creative people come together to shop for food and exchange ideas. We're busy concentrating on getting this Co-op open so we can have a place where locally grown and responsibly raised food can be found at fair prices and where we can help connect members of the community to the food they put on their table. But it's nice to know that it could have these kinds of great spin-off effects. Besides, who doesn't have their best ideas when their noshing on some great, locally made breads with their friends?

So what can you do to make this happen? Easy. Become a member. Today. We're at 86 87 89 paid members as of the writing of this post. (We actually added one while I was writing this blog post! edited to add: And two more after I published it!) It's simple. When we get to 250 member-owners we can form a real estate committee to search out a location and start talking to lenders.

At 500 600, we can start the process of signing a lease and doing construction. At 700-800 we cut the ribbon. But that 250 mark is crucial. Plenty of folks will jump on board once we start looking for a location and even more will sign up when we have that location and start building. We need you to be one of our 250 Founding Members who will get us to that critical mass. Click here to join. Fill out an application and either pay by Paypal or send it a check. Your member-owner equity is a TOTAL of $200 and payable in low installments over the next 15 months. It's WAAAY easier than starting a solar energy company. But who knows? Once you join the Co-op maybe it's the place where you'll get YOUR next great idea.

Yay, Autumn!

I don't know about you, but while I'll miss zucchini and tomatoes, I'm alright with summer's passing. Not being outdoorsy, or in school, or wealthy, I just don't get it when people ask me, "How was your summer?" No one checks in during March and asks how winter went. We don't summer in the Hamptons, and I haven't had a summer "off" since before 12th grade. Summer's just a lot of sweating, and mosquito bites, and air conditioning, and trying to find a way to work around the heat (salted radishes for dinner).

But then there's autumn! Autumn with it's crispness and calmness and leaves changing color and chasing each other down the street in the wind. Autumn. Skirts with sweaters! And autumn is apples and squash and cabbages and greens.

We got our first load of autumnal fruit in the CSA two weeks ago. And somehow, didn't jump into high gear eating apples and pears every day. Time to make sauce.

Apple-pear sauce is exactly the same thing as applesauce, only pear-ier. It's a little bit less crisp and somewhat more earthy. If you can call pears earthy. I mean, they're not root vegetables.

Rarely do I post a recipe where there are required tools. Typically it's like, "mix this using whatcha got," but a wire mesh strainer is key here. Or a food mill, but I don't have that.

Gather your fruit.

With a paring knife (or an apple corer, or whatever), core your fruit. Toss out any bruised or ugly spots. We'd had these fruit for nearly two weeks, so I lost about a pears-worth in the process. I started with a pound of pears and two pounds of apples, pre-coring and cleaning. Four pears, five apples. No idea what kind of apples they are, something from somewhere around here.

Toss the fruit into a pot, skins and all.

And add the juice of a lemon.

Add enough water to just about come up to the top of the fruit and simmer, medium, no boil, for 20 minutes or so.

When the fruit is soft - and think like, boiling potatoes for mashed potatoes soft - turn off the heat and get your strainer set up over a large bowl.

Scoop your fruit out of the water and into the strainer - hold on to the water. Smush through the strainer with a wooden spoon.

Remove peels from the strainer as you go, just to make it easier for the fruit to pass through the mesh. Just keep working it with the back of the spoon.

 After it's all passed through the strainer, I like to give it a second pass, so scrape out the skins and what didn't go through, give a rinse and dump the sauce back into the strainer for round two. If you like it thicker, stop here and don't give it a second strain.

After two passes, I add back some of the liquid from cooking, just enough to get the texture I want. I like it pretty fine.

Sure, you can add sugar and cinnamon and all, but depending on the apples you have, it might be pretty awesome just like this. You can always reheat it and simmer it with spices before serving, but natural, unsweetened, unflavored sauce is delicious straight up or for baking.

 This recipe is cross-posted at Saturday’s Mouse, where I’m working on making food out of food. 

You don't so much need a recipe, but this is a great way to use the apples and pears that are coming in this season. Ignore the measurements and use what you have.

Ingredients

• 2 pounds apples


• 1 pound pears


• 2 cups water


• 1 lemon

Instructions

• Core the fruit and place it in a large pot.


• Add water almost to the top of the fruit.


• Add the juice of one lemon.


• Simmer medium low, avoiding boiling, until fruit is tender.


• Work fruit through a metal sieve with a wooden spoon.


• For finer sauce, take two passes through the sieve and add some reserved cooking water until you have the texture you want.

Details

• Prep time: 15 mins


• Cook time: 20 mins


• Total time: 35 mins


• Yield: 6 servings

 

Today was a very exciting day for the Co-op. About 15 committee members, representing nearly all of our committees gathered to build, discuss and plan our goals for the next 6 months to a year. We are pleased to announce that we have not only set our main goals for the co-op, but our committees have also taken on specific tasks to help us toward achieving these goals.

Our biggest priority for the co-op right now is membership. As of today, we have 86 members, which is really inspiring. However, in order to begin the process of looking for a location, we need to reach our goal of 250 members. This number is based on the projections and advice of organizations like CDS Consulting, who work closely with co-ops all over the country at various phases of development. If you have a friend or neighbor who has expressed interest in the co-op, now is the time to tell them to join! They can join online, by downloading an application and mailing in a check, or by coming out to our membership meeting.

Until we reach that critical mass of member support, we cannot move forward to begin looking at locations, so please help spread the co-op love around!

Our second exciting announcement is that we will be releasing our new logo soon! This will be featured on all of our literature, our website and promotional materials.

Don't forget to attend our General Membership Meeting on October 17th at the Church of Trinity at 2300 S. 18th Street at 6:30pm to find out more about what's in store for the co-op over the next 6 months.  You will also get a chance to participate in our first general membership vote (agenda here).

Today we are pulling together our main goals for the next six months. Some great discussion, stay tuned for updates!

Last Saturday was great!  From what I saw, the Garden Tour was a huge success and lots of fun!  I met a lot of neighbors and talked to a lot of people about how great co-ops are.  I also got some pretty interesting questions about my garden so I thought I'd sum up what I've learned from my first real gardening season.

Lots of people remarked on how small but full my space was.  That's one of my favorite things about my little garden:  it's pretty tiny but I've filled it to the gills with plants because I like how they look all packed in and also I couldn't bear to throw out any of my little tomato babies.  And I've been pleasantly surprised with how many plants I can actually fit back there (my roommate may tell you otherwise).

There have been some casualties, though:  I planted my sunflowers and my squash too close together and while the squash fought valiantly, the sunflowers won out and the squash eventually died.  But this was when I got smart and only planted half of my squash seeds so I'm going to try again next year.  Another thing:  tomatoes are not supposed to be this close together:

Though I haven't had too many problems with blight or flies (one of my tomato plants had blight so I moved it to my little "alleyway" where it continues to grow somehow) tomato leaves are known for getting various diseases and keeping plants farther apart reduces the risk of moisture around the leaves which is when bacteria and fungus tend to grow.  Someone suggested a hanging tomato plant and I might try one or two of those in the future, since spreading out vertically is really my only option (thanks, Garden Tour visitor!)

A lot of people asked how I cared for my tomatoes and got them so large.  First, these are mostly beefsteak, which is a very large plant on its own.  Secondly, I started with good seeds (though next year I am going to buy my seeds locally, perhaps from here, and I'm also going to try saving some seeds from the tomatoes this year) and my seedlings were always pretty strong thanks to my big front window which gets sun all day, and even more sun in the afternoon.  I fertilized my tomatoes with some fish emulsion once, in the middle of July.  Otherwise the soil was just potting soil with lots of compost (from Bennett Compost) and I would add additional compost every few weeks.  If you're using a regular fertilizer (they all will tell you the ratio of N-P-K, which stand for Nitrogen-Phosphorus-Potassium) you want one low in nitogen, high in phosphorus and medium-high in potassium.  And that's the extent of my fertilizing knowledge.

I've heard that if you're growing tomatoes in a small space you should opt for smaller varieties of tomatoes, like cherry or grape.  But I like big tomatoes, so I ignored that.  I have learned that big tomatoes need big pots, and some of my pots were too small (or I crowded too many plants into larger pots...a common problem of mine, as you can see.)  I think the key is that if you want big tomatoes, you need big pots to give them enough space.  It also makes watering easier because big pots don't dry out as quickly as small ones do.  I think this may be the problem with my eggplant also:  I threw them all in one pot not realizing how big they would get and I have yet to see an eggplant.  I'm not giving up on you yet, though, eggplant.

Lots of people asked about the tree.  I have a pretty big Japanese maple tree in my backyard that was there when we moved in (I guess "big" is a relative word here.)  It limits the amount of sun my garden gets, but it also provides a place for me to grow different kinds of plants, those that like shade:

At first I was kind of annoyed that the tree was taking up all this sun, but then I realized that it was good to have some much-needed shade.  The shade is pretty dappled so I can grow partial-shade plants there, too, which is nice.

So thanks for your questions, garden tourers (tourists?)!  It was fun to meet people who read this blog (!!) and maybe get some new readers, too.  And even though the summer is drawing to a close (and this post reads like a wrap-up post) I am still growing things and writing about them.  I've found fall to be a great growing season here - not as horribly hot as the summer but still fairly warm and sunny.  My little kale and chard are growing away!  The chard didn't like all that rain but now it seems to be doing better:

and some of the kale got too wet but this pot still seems to be doing fine despite the moss:

So stay tuned for more plants!  I'll keep things growing as long as the weather allows.

Oh, and this reads like an afterthought but it definitely isn't - I just didn't know where to stick it in other than at the end - but there were some people who deserve a shout out for making this whole thing run a lot more smoothly:  my parents, who bought Garden Tour tickets as soon as they heard about it (loyal SPFC blog readers) and came all the way down from Massachusetts for the tour.  Once I finally convinced them to leave my house they really enjoyed seeing all the gardens!  And thanks to my boyfriend who sat out front the whole time greeting people and brought me some much-needed food.  I couldn't have done it without any of you!

Sarah DeGiorgis has lived in Philly for five years and is finally starting to feel like a true Philadelphian, though she still detests cheesesteaks.  She enjoys reading, watching bad tv, eating and cooking good food and digging in the dirt. Catch up with her continuing efforts to grow food in South Philly by clicking here.

Treehugger.com is a great website to get news about all different aspects of environmental policy, clean energy innovations and climate change implications. Recently I came across a post about the growing trend of organic and local food showing up on the shelves and in the bins of major grocery chains. While this is a welcome change, it still leaves a lot of questions like how local is local? Are the organic foods raised in a sustainable and environmentally sensitive way? It's important to remember that the bottom line for the grocery chains is exactly that... the bottom line. Profit. Organic and local are "in" right now. The general public is picking up on it and increasing their demand for these products. Large food retailers are only too happy to jump in and provide these goods at a premium price (for what may actually be cheaper for them to purchase given savings on transportation costs). A food co-op that carries local, organic and sustainably produced foods has a different motivation. For a food co-op devoted to carrying these products as part of its mission there really is no choice but to carry local, organic and sustainably produced foods. On top of that, the food co-op seeks to educated consumers about why these "buzz words" are actually important to the overall environment and to their own public health. Finally, the co-op seeks to make the connection between consumers and the source of their food. Offering "local" is great. But offering tomatoes from "XYZ Farm in Bucks County, owned by John Doe who has been raising his tomatoes in such and such fashion" tells the story behind the food. And if we can't raise our own tomatoes (and have our own stories), then knowing the story behind the tomatoes we do eat is almost as good.