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.
Wednesday, October 5, 2011
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!
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
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.
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.
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
Recent News
This comes from Mike:
STORM REPORT******
NEWS FAKTORY******
NEXT MEETING*******
Hey Gang,
I took the chance in todays thaw to go down to the garden. Walking in, I saw some funny sights, results from yesterday' storm.
The two beds in front, to the left, were both moved a couple feet from where they'd been. Huh'; And there was a bunch of recycling trash scattered about. The trash can was knocked over. A lot of leaves everywhere.
All the cold frame glass was intact, which surprised me, seeing as how much chaos was else everywhere. Greenhouse was in tip-top shape. I noticed some strange claw marks on one styrofoam piece. Looked like some wild gremlin scratches, bigger than a dog like Cate. Maybe that hawk, but-
Then, as I walk back toward the garden, I saw that the giant pine beam from in front of the greenhouse, bed the squash were in this year-- that giant beam was moved about fifteen feet right up next to yarrow's steps!! WHAT!? And another of those beams was moved a foot or so.
At this point I could think of nothing else than some giant strong gremlin was playing havoc in our garden. I calld Dauna.
She said we musta got hit by one of them twisters!!! There was a bunch of them back in the fifties in that neighborhood, just some microclimate because wer'e at the mouth of the bay. ( We were in that last night here on George M Cohan Boulevard. Our house was swaying. up here on the third floor it was notable, like being on a boat. especially with all that water splashing onthe windows. )
Soon after, I saw Yarrow, and he said it been flooding. They got some in their shop too, (remember that giant puddle that forms between yarrows and gerrys???) and we started seeing the watermark left all over the garden. On the back wall it was about ten inches!!! The line was up to the edge of all the beds, I guess water filling in the channels. The marks on the greenhouse are high! They go about 15 inches up the side right next to the door. Right up to the top brick on our new wall. Water came in the channel a lot, from what I can see. It is hard to even believe!! Well, everything is really fine, some tools may have got soaked but everything was amazing tranquil!! Nothing really distrubed.
Many of the new beds were moved around, all the ones on the serpentine. We should switch those around anyway, and get 'em off the rocks.
----- Fertile Weatherground, Illuminated Press Freely, Providence. 12/13/10 D'Spacio et al.
I got the front bed inside the greenhouse all filled in with compost. Beautiful day, all warm and amicable. The soil moved nice, unlike the other day when the ground was frozen. I learned that the large front window is perfectly sized to fit Gerry wide wheelbarrow! So I was just pouring it in through the front.
That bed is ready to plant. We've potted up about 40 plant-folks who are currently living in there, and they should go in. Also I have some seeds of winter-hardy varieties of lettuce, watercress, spinach, & chard. I can definitely use help planting the greenhouse, and generally organizing and preparing to tend a new group of plants.
I don't know when I will have a chance to get back over, but if there is a good day for you, maybe we could do it then. After Wednesday. And speaking of Wednesday,
We'll be meeting at Brower's this Wednesday after 7:30.
STORM REPORT******
NEWS FAKTORY******
NEXT MEETING*******
Hey Gang,
I took the chance in todays thaw to go down to the garden. Walking in, I saw some funny sights, results from yesterday' storm.
The two beds in front, to the left, were both moved a couple feet from where they'd been. Huh'; And there was a bunch of recycling trash scattered about. The trash can was knocked over. A lot of leaves everywhere.
All the cold frame glass was intact, which surprised me, seeing as how much chaos was else everywhere. Greenhouse was in tip-top shape. I noticed some strange claw marks on one styrofoam piece. Looked like some wild gremlin scratches, bigger than a dog like Cate. Maybe that hawk, but-
Then, as I walk back toward the garden, I saw that the giant pine beam from in front of the greenhouse, bed the squash were in this year-- that giant beam was moved about fifteen feet right up next to yarrow's steps!! WHAT!? And another of those beams was moved a foot or so.
At this point I could think of nothing else than some giant strong gremlin was playing havoc in our garden. I calld Dauna.
She said we musta got hit by one of them twisters!!! There was a bunch of them back in the fifties in that neighborhood, just some microclimate because wer'e at the mouth of the bay. ( We were in that last night here on George M Cohan Boulevard. Our house was swaying. up here on the third floor it was notable, like being on a boat. especially with all that water splashing onthe windows. )
Soon after, I saw Yarrow, and he said it been flooding. They got some in their shop too, (remember that giant puddle that forms between yarrows and gerrys???) and we started seeing the watermark left all over the garden. On the back wall it was about ten inches!!! The line was up to the edge of all the beds, I guess water filling in the channels. The marks on the greenhouse are high! They go about 15 inches up the side right next to the door. Right up to the top brick on our new wall. Water came in the channel a lot, from what I can see. It is hard to even believe!! Well, everything is really fine, some tools may have got soaked but everything was amazing tranquil!! Nothing really distrubed.
Many of the new beds were moved around, all the ones on the serpentine. We should switch those around anyway, and get 'em off the rocks.
----- Fertile Weatherground, Illuminated Press Freely, Providence. 12/13/10 D'Spacio et al.
I got the front bed inside the greenhouse all filled in with compost. Beautiful day, all warm and amicable. The soil moved nice, unlike the other day when the ground was frozen. I learned that the large front window is perfectly sized to fit Gerry wide wheelbarrow! So I was just pouring it in through the front.
That bed is ready to plant. We've potted up about 40 plant-folks who are currently living in there, and they should go in. Also I have some seeds of winter-hardy varieties of lettuce, watercress, spinach, & chard. I can definitely use help planting the greenhouse, and generally organizing and preparing to tend a new group of plants.
I don't know when I will have a chance to get back over, but if there is a good day for you, maybe we could do it then. After Wednesday. And speaking of Wednesday,
We'll be meeting at Brower's this Wednesday after 7:30.
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