Wednesday, October 5, 2011

New Website!

Oh yeah! I ALMOST FORGOT!! Fertile Underground has a shiny new website for your internet perusing pleasure! It is just in Beta for now, but you can join to post comments, just like on a forum, and it will be getting added to and updated regularly with news on all of Fertile Underground's exciting collective endeavors, such as: the garden, the worker co-operative, the natural food store and cafe, the Fishbowl, the Food Truck, and all the sweet community events that go on around here!

Check it out at
fertileunderground.com

Firehouse 13 Show, Peppers

Hi Everyone, Sorry This hasn't been updated in so long.
It has been a good summer, a crazy summer. So much has happened.

We reached our Kickstarter goal and have been working, with the help of so many community supporters, new members, the WBNA, and awesome help from the Universe, to open a cooperatively worker-run, Natural Foods Grocery and Cafe at 1577 Westminster St.

Our Garden on Pearl St. has been bountiful and continues into the fall season yielding many greens, flowers, raspberries, tomatoes, hot peppers, eggplants, broccoli, potatoes, green beans, basil and other herbs. If you haven't been by lately, you should! The open hours, during which a garden steward can show you around, are posted on the fence by the gate. There is someone there almost everyday.

At the end of this month, we will bid a fond farewell to our Pearl St. garden as we return it to our landlord for his own future garden endeavors, having fulfilled our mission to beautify and renew a previously neglected lot. We turn our sights towards other areas of the city which are in need of transformation from wasteland to farmland. If there is a lot in your neighborhood that you would like to see built into a vibrant community space of healthy, organic homegrown food and lush vegetation, let us know!

Also, THURSDAY OCTOBER 13th at FIREHOUSE 13! We are hosting a concert and potluck harvest party! YOU SHOULD COME!! BIRNG YOUR FRIENDS AND SOMETHING TO SHARE!! More info will be posted about times and bands pretty soon.

Tuesday, April 19, 2011

Important News!

Our Kickstarter has two days left and $1000 to go! What drama! What excitement! Will your donation be the three-point shot at the buzzer?? Do it! Wooo! the Crowd goes wild! Veggies and organic granola everywhere!

Special thanks to the Providence Friends Meeting and their amazing outpouring of support. Commemoration on our mural is surely in order.

Tonight we meet with the WBNA and share our financial plan and packet for investors. Wish us luck!

Thursday, March 31, 2011

Kickstarter and Garden Clean-Up Day!



It's snowing! Hopefully it clears off and warms up a little in time for us to have our next scheduled Garden Clean-up and Opener Day. !!!

The weather is iffy, and chill, SO DRESS WARM, and come down, garden open
SATURDAY FROM 1 TO 4. but if it is really unpleasant weather, we will rain date to SUNDAY FROM 12 TO 4.We have a mission to clear up the North Fence, and do some more planting and planning, and maybe FIRE!

Also, we are still looking for a few more new members, so this weekend is a great chance to come by and sign up and get your veggie vouchers!

Also, very exiciting, our Kickstarter page is finally up! https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/funderground/fertile-underground-grocery

Sunday, March 20, 2011

HAPPY SPRING! WELCOME TO NEW MEMBERS!

Hello everybody! If you are new to the Fertile Underground, welcome! This blog is where you can share photos, stories, lessons, ideas and observations about our communal garden. Anything you would like to see up here, just send to andrea@fertileunderground.com.

Today is the Spring Equinox, and it was a gorgeous sunny, breezy day in Providence, RI. New and old members came together to spruce up the garden and get it ready for planting. It is looking neat and tidy after everyone's hard work. The walkways and open spaces were raked. The beds were weeded, cleared of old plantings, stakes and markers, and turned under. Our newest members are already showing themselves to be hardworking, enthusiastic, wonderful additions to our garden family, and it was fun to start envisioning our shared wealth of agricultural possibilities for the season.

We even got some seeds planted -- if you go into our greenhouse, aka the Sheman Faktory, you will find hundreds of tiny seedlings sprouting in the sunsoaked earthen planting shelf to your right -- mostly herbs, peas, and hardy lettuces. To your right you will see several trays which have just been planted with varities of dyer's corepsis and sweet marjoram.
We also planted a bed of "Over the Rainbow" carrots -- a mix of different colored carrots that should be ready to eat in June, and some peas and "Jacob's Cattle" beans, which are a delicious and beautiful dry bean that are white with brown speckles.

Come back again soon, I will be posting about some exciting new projects that Fertile Underground is working on in addition to the Garden at Pearl St. You can read about these exciting things at fertileunderground.com

Monday, January 10, 2011

2 YEAR ANNIVERSARY PARTY!!!




On Thursday, January 6th, on the 2011th Epiphany, we gathered by the fire pit to celebrate the Fertile Underground's 2 year anniversary as a group. Bearing gifts of beverages, Christmas lights on the greenhouse, Christmas tree from the sidewalk, rosemary and incense, junior mints and orange juice, and lots of comeraderie and love, the Wise People from the East side of Providence and the West side and south and north and wherever we are all from, came to brighten and warm the cold garden with our presence, and bask in the glow of the firelight. The spinach in the Greenhouse is growing happily, sweet and tender as you please, and many exciting possibilities for new projects are in the near future. We'll keep you up-to-date as these projects get going.

Saturday, December 18, 2010

Pictures of the Flood

A bunch of photos of our garden, some flood mayhem, and the progress on the greenhouse, courtesy of Trev Hedge.
Fence. Interesting view of the front of Fertile Underground

Cobbles. Donation from neighbor: on Pine St., ; dormant/rubbish for about 3 yrs.; will be using in our Serpentine bed, in front of Garden


Beds. Seen from the front of the Garden, Pearl St. Side.


Beds. Greenhouse can be seen in the background.


Beds. local lovers claim their space in the pastoral garden.


Hotboxes. Dauna spent a bunch of time making sure that our Greens are going to go a few months into the cold of winter, protected by some of the donations that membrs have given us, like these storm windows.


Serp Bed Green. Even a light freezing doesn't deter some of the plants.The Rosemary plant, with Lamb's Ear, and another well-growing herb from the Back Serpentine Bed.



Spaulding Firebrick. Spaulding brick donated a load of industrial brick to us for use in the Greenhouse project. Some of this load of "rejects" is actually firebrick. It seems logical that those firebricks should all be used at our Rumford Stove Fireplace. Hopefully, we'll be able to throw a grill across the bottom bricks and have a cook-out across some nice Cherry tree wood.



Mike. Some guy named d'Spazio working in the Greenhouse (a.k.a. Sunhaus). I think he's one of our itinerant workers from the South [Side of Providence], trying to earn his day's ration. It looks like he's earned about the Tide's worth of credit for this job. Well Done!



Sheman Faktory. Our itinerant worker d'Spazio, seen through the blessing of the vestal saints, Ancient Bottle, and Rev.Bullsh*t wine; finishing his chores to collect that Tide, so that he may redeem it at the Fertile Underground Grocery, for a coveted jar of pecan butter.



Flood1-4. Not much to say, just overall shots of the effects of the Gremlins.