So this is the story... of how we're evolving =)

Hi everyone,

Well, we've heard back from all the share members on the survey that I sent out a while ago -- so I thought I'd share with everyone a summary of the input received, as well as definite changes that we are making next year.

Firstly, everyone was pretty happy about the quality of the food -- hooray! We are going to make some improvements here -- like protective, resuable plastic containers for smaller fruits and tomatoes; and reusable cotton towels to keep greens fresher than they otherwise could have been (had we kept them in a fridge for 100% of their journey).

In terms of variety, you all were very kind with your comments... too kind, I fear! :) We want to give you the very best, most CSA-like experience possible on a small urban plot, so we will be pushing for a larger variety of edible goodness next year. Think definitely more greens, root veggies and probably a larger herb patch (for herbs all season long!). I'm excited about the challenge!

We also are going to set up a garden "wiki," whereby all share members will be able to share recipes, preserving tips and other ideas. The wiki will also have a calendar that I will keep updated with days and times that I and the students will be at the garden, as well as current ongoing tasks and special events (like pinics, cookouts or pickling sessions). Since it is a wiki, you (as a share member) will be able to sign up to volunteer to help during the week, to join in on one of the special events, or help us with larger ongoing tasks (like weeding, burying potatoes, etc.) at a time of your convenience.

I was also happy for the critique about cucumber harvesting... such a simple solution to preventing wasted food, and all it took was your quick and honest comment for me to realize it! If we're only going to pick them once in a week (which I always knew was quite not ideal), then we d&%m well better pick medium-sized ones too -- otherwise, too many will have begun to yellow and go to seed by the following Sunday! :)

I would like to again recruit one or two students to be THE people who keep you all updated on the club's doings, and I will certainly try to get them on a regular schedule and putting some serious effort into it. But this is one of the aspects of the garden that I wanted to be the most hands-off with, as this keeps it natural and gives you true perspective. Thus, I'm also the least in control of the final quality. =) Wish us luck setting up a strong 'media' team next spring!!! ;)

There were a couple of other good suggestions made, but we definitely want to focus on the changes that we thought would be the most doable and the most powerful for year two. Thanks again for your precious thoughts, opinions and ideas!

Finally, I wanted to talk about how the model of the Wendell Phillips veggie plot as a sustainable and socially engaged enterprise will evolve. Probably the most excited change we're planning for next year is that we're expanding share offerings to people in the immediate community, as well as to teachers and staff at Wendell Phillips. Initially, each of the three groups will have the option to buy into up to eight shares, for a total of 24 shares. We may later expand to a total of thirty, if we find that students do not take home as much produce as we encourage them to.

The cost per share will will either be $200 or $250 (I still have to run the numbers on what we'll need in terms of supplies + the paid student internships that we will need to have for the EXTRA work that is to be done in the spring and fall + the little bit leftover that I will have in place of a paycheck over the summer months =). Also, instead of an optional additional monetary donation to the club, both first-year members as well as teachers will have the option to make an additional charitable donation of $25, $50 or $100 that will be applied towards reducing the price of a share for someone in the immediate community.

I invite you to reply to the email that delivers this post to you, if you have additional important comments that you feel are worth making. I will be able to read them... though I may not necessarily reply, as that part is unfortunately a bit convoluted!

All the best from a very excited urban "farmer" =)
Mr. Mikulski

Photos from our last share harvest + fresh pasta cookout!

I was sad that more of our members didn't make it out, but glad to find that it wasn't too difficult to get our outdoor stoves roaring and to make a delicious meal right on the site of the garden. Of course, Doro had a lot to do with the 'delicious' part of it; she did a terrific job of making a sauce from freshly picked tomatoes, peppers and herbs (plus the onions and garlic that we brought).

I wanted to give a special thanks to Jasmine, Chuck, Leora and Mark for joining Doro, Josie and I, for some fun cooking out and chowing down!

We'll have to do more stuff like this next year... maybe even expand it to invite people who are passing by. If there is one thing our garden can never have enough of (... *cough*... "eggplants..." =) it is goodwill in the
surrounding neighborhood.

NB: This Sunday, Oct. 6th, is our last planned harvest. 18 weeks of food was pretty good; while we understand that the first few boxes were a little slim, we should be able to fix this next year via increased spring greens production. For this final harvest, I'll be doing all the picking at the garden as usual, but won't be dividing up the gathered food into boxes. Instead, it will be brought to share pickup and you can take what you'd like.

Will these radishes ever
be nibbled?

Will these salad greens ever            
get munched on?

[!!! Also, on the Thursday prior to harvest, a potential new member of the garden club stayed after school and helped me plant a few plants that had been growing indoors. We basically wanted to see if the mustard greens, radishes and onions that were recently started inside will have enough time to grow into food. I'm doubtful but, hey --experiments are fun! ]



It may be worthwhile to let you all know how we are planning to change our share distribution for next year. The idea is to sell 27-30 shares, equally divided between immediate neighborhood, citywide sponsors, and teachers. That means that friends of Doro and I that want to sponsor will have access to up to ten shares (up from the eight that we sold last year). This year's trial members will have a right to first refusal on buying in to next year's operation (as a small thank you for your participation this year).

Current shareholders, be on the lookout for an email inviting you to provide feedback on how you felt this year went. We want to try to make our first year's formal share pricing strong enough to enable this student training program to be sustainable, while also responding to what you all felt was great or needs improvement.

until next time!
Mr. Mikulski

We are seed-savers! (...and you can, too!)

Hi everyone,

So yesterday we had our second garden club meeting of the new (school) year. So far there are four new faces that might become committed members of our plant-growing, food-plucking enterprise: Mr. Heard, Ms. England, Mr. Savage and Mr. Noel. They are all freshman, and have been joining us twice weekly, wetting their feet in the world of homegrown food. At the first meeting, the kids went with me to the garden and plucked some ripe and overripe fruits, and then came back to the classroom to first taste them and then to harvest the seeds from them.

At the latest meeting, we were pulling the dried seeds off of napkins and out of bowls we had set aside, and packaging them up nicely inside special zip-lock bags:

These mylar bags are great for seed storage as they are 1) tough=very reusable, 2) waterproof, and 3) keep UV rays out. We are hauling in considerable seed to help start next year's garden, but I also want to encourage share members to try their hands at collecting seeds. The main rules of thumb are 1) to separate the seeds from the rest of the fruit, as best as possible and to 2) spread them out on a surface that is exposed to moving (but not too hot) air. Paper napkins work really well! Just make sure you label exactly what fruit it was (squash seeds as well as tomato seeds all look nearly alike) -- and then give them to me the next time you pick up your share.

Unfortunately, our core three club members from this past season -- Jasmine, Ousmane and Tina -- have not been regularly attending the club meetings and also have not been coming out for Sunday harvests. I believe each one of them is involved in a fall sport. Outside of the seniors that helped us get the garden started in the spring, they were the main students keeping the garden going through the summer! Thus, I am currently figuring out how to better advertise the club in the school. I also believe that, once my daytime gig at the school starts up, I will be in a better position to personally introduce the HOP! programs to other students.

Here's to one, two or maybe even three more veggie boxes! Oh and, keep an eye out for my email invite to a SPECIAL EVENT that we're combining with harvest this Sunday.

best,
Mr. Mikulski

Herbs, and the story on fruit!

Yesterday everyone got a bonus bundle of herbs (thanks to the alternating rainy days and sunny weather, our miserable little herb patch exploded a bit and needed a trim). You should have found five different herbs in your box: sage, summer savory, anise, oregano, and parsley. Fellow share member Todd also brought in some mint, which got put in some of the boxes later... in any case, it was a lot of herbs! My recommendations are to either 1) cook a lot of italian/mediterranean dishes this week, or 2) tie up your herbs in a place with warm/hot dry circulating air (like above the rear of your fridge!) and dehydrate them for later use.

Sorry share members, but, when there is only one ripe melon... this is definitely what happens =)

Also, people have given me feedback about the share asking for more salad greens and, if possible, more fruit next year. I wanted to give everyone the quick lowdown on both points. Re: salad, I totally understand... what good is a crispy, tangy and spicy 'French Breakfast Radish' without a salad to put it in? Or, "of course, cucumber salad is yummy... but how about letting me put my cucumbers IN a salad of greens?" :) One of the things we hope to better manage next year is all of our quick-to-harvest (ie, ~30-day cycle) crops. It didn't help that many of the greens we grew dried out and died while in the school, but we plan to build a mini-hoophouse-greenhouse thingy for next year. This will help us keep a constant supply of salad greens, cooking greens, radishes, and other root crops.

Josie 'helping'

Re: what about fruit? Well, we planted seven fruit trees this year (only four of which survived transplantation... I have been hassling the company about their replacement guarantee for months). And we also planted a strawberry patch (which we will be expanding in the next few weeks) as well as a small raspberry patch. What is important to know in the context of all of this is that fruiting plants, bushes and trees generally need a year or more to establish strong root infrastructure + branching before it is recommended to allow them to fruit. So... if the plants and trees return next year in much stronger form, there may well be the occasional strawberries, raspberries, apples, pears, peaches, etc. in your box.

Thanks for understanding, and please be on the lookout for a survey that I will send at the end of the season, to take full stock in your compliments, recommendations and opinions.

best,
Mr. Mikulski

p.s. -- Thank you to those of you that helped make my surprise birthday party happen. You brought an immense amount of joy into one Saturday evening for this 'old man.' :) Here is a pic of the lovely 'garden birthday cake' you all made:

Notice how the cake comes pre-configured in a share-based layout... savvy! 

Some new helping hands

This past Sunday, a few hours before harvest time, I put out my usual email to Wendell Phillips Veggie Farm share members. In it, I reminded people that, if anyone is interested, they can join the kids and I for harvest. Well, it turns out that we got a couple of sets of new helping hands:

Say "Well, hello!" to Hye and Todd (the new help) on the left in the snapshot. Say, "Eh, I've seen you before... no big deal!" (just kidding) to Ms. Ebright and her fella Andy, on the right.

This was the second week that we had melons... expect to have one or two more of such 'sweet' weeks. The fruit we took home was amazingly ripe and delicious; I hope yours tasted likewise. Also, I must admit that I was disappointed that no student members showed up on Sunday. Usually they come, help with the harvest, and take home a box of veggies for themselves. I even told them earlier in the week, "you should really come... we're going to have melons and possibly also peaches!" And the weather was nice too, so that was not an issue...

Not pictured are three other shares (two picked up by the on-site help, one divided into the 'extras' boxes. We'll miss you, Chris and Mindi!

Alas, school has started back and I find our operation in competition with the other interests of the kids. Two of our usual members have been busy with sports (soccer and cross country) pretty much since the school's doors reopened at the beginning of August. The third... well, I'm starting to think that she wasn't having as much fun taking care of the plants and hanging out as she let on. Maybe she was just in it for the summer internship money? I don't know.

What I DO know is that, if we hope to expand production to 20-25 shares next year, we'll need more than just three committed student members. And, we'll need them to see the garden through its fall production -- even after the paid summer internship is over. I'm working on that right now, trying to recruit new interest in the club... will let you all know how it turns out in a month or so...

Until then, try to STRONGLY consider coming out on Sunday, and helping with the harvest :)

best,
Mr. Mikulski

The flame tree

Hi, everyone this is jasmine it turns out that the trees that i thought were bananas are not actual bananas. They are really called the flame tree. My mom told me that they were banana trees and i got so excited that i wanted to take a picture and blog about it. I dont feel so bad about it because my mom told me and i actually found out on my own that they are not what it seems. I made a huge mistake about it. One day, my sister and I went over to the trees and we decided to take it down. As we got closer we realized it was no banana tree and we peeled the skin off. When we peeled the skin off we saw 2 big peas inside and we were so disappointed, because we really wanted it to be a banana tree.

The flame tree

A dose of sweetness

Hi everyone. Mr. Mikulski here. Just wanted to share a couple pics of yesterday's harvest. Unfortunately my phone/camera is not working, so I wasn't able to take a photo of everything I had picked and packaged, all in the back of the truck. That looked amazing, let me tell you -- ten vegetable boxes, packed to the brim, and then an extra big plastic box full of, well... extra produce, and then there were enough melons for everyone to have one -- filling in the few remaining spaces in the truck bed.

I WAS however able to make a photo once I got back from share delivery at Arrigo. Here are four remaining shares, the box of extras, and the remaining melons:

Josie-eye view -- Mmm!!!

Aerial view -- If you look closely you can guess what kind of produce Josie got her hands on

Melons are nice, huh? It's nice to have something desert-ish in the box, for a change. Here is one share up close:

I moved the mizuna greens off the top, so you could see everything in the box

The truth is that there was other stuff to harvest, too -- stuff like smaller cherry tomatoes, corn, and possibly potatoes. But since it was raining on and off during the normal harvest time yesterday, nobody else showed up to help pick stuff. I usually have at least one other adult out there with me, but no such luck this time. So I just picked as much as I could from 1:00 to 4:00 and then called it quits...

I reckon we'll keep having stuff to eat until at least mid-October -- and I don't think it's just me being optimistic. Because we're not over-fertilizing, the plants aren't getting exhausted early on. Also, I just looked at a calendar, and, geez, Harvest Week 1 turns into Harvest Week 12 so quickly. It has been a great ride so far, hope you all are enjoying it too!

Until next time!
Mr. Mikulski

The banana trees

Today, as i was on my way to school. I saw 2 big banana trees outside in front of my house. I decided to take a picture of it because i never saw a banana tree before and it was a surprise to me. I was so amazed. My mom told me about it but i never had a chance to go look at it myself, because i have always been busy. But, today i decided to go see it because i thought it was kind of important to blog about it. Also, I wanted people to believe that we really had banana trees growing in chicago, because some people dont believe we do so here is pictures to prove it:



This is the first banana tree

This is the second banana tree



The trip to the wild!

On Friday, August 10th, 2012 was a fun day for me because we took a trip to the wild. We experienced different things like seeing nature: Dragon flies, bees, frogs, grasshoppers,etc.. We were in Des Plaines, IL. Its about 30 to 45 minutes from Chicago. First we stopped at Mcdonalds and had a good breakfast ( sorry i don't have the pictures for that). I was so scared to go inside of the woods because i thought something was going to attack me. But i still went in the woods and ran into a beautiful pond:

Also, along the way we picked berries and put them into clear containers. We are goin to make maybe grape juice out of it. We only saw one kind of  berry and that was the blueberry. We tasted it and it was very sweet. We had a hard time trying to reach the top ones because those were the good ones and it was more on top.

These are one of the blueberries that we picked

This is another container filled with berries

This is a pond with frogs but you cant really see them

We were afraid to go in there

We've impacted google maps!!!

hey everyone,

I was just google-mapping the neighborhood around our vegetable plot, and saw that the new Google Maps scan has aerial photos showing the plow lines that Doro and I made back in April:

How cool is that? I feel like we're changing the world, one small square at a time... :)

Mr. Mikulski

I'm Back!!

 Hi, everyone this is jasmine and i finally got my internet back on so I'm back. Today, we watered everything in the garden. We also had some vlunteers to come along and help us. It was this nice lady who works at the school, Ms. Thompson, with her 2 nephews : Jonathan and Jeremiah. They were great helpers. We found out that they had a garden as well.

This is the corn plant with the Aphids but you can hardly see them because they are so small.

I found out something interesting about the corn plants. We found out that there were little green bugs with black legs they were called Aphids. They suck the juices right out of the stem. But, there were three types of bugs: Ants (both little and big), Lady bugs and the Aphids. The lady bugs helped us by feeding on to the aphids so that they wouldn't suck the juice. The Ants were actually like farmers, they wait until the Aphids poop or pee and suck on it. It is actually kind of sweet to them. Even though, you cant see it but Mr. Mulkulski told us that.

These are the volunteers that came along and helped us out:Jonathan and Jeremiah

I also did something that was fun. I lawn mowered between the plants to keep the weeds from getting badder. I mowered all the rows. I thought of it as being fun to do because i never did it before.

Updating our members (nudge, Jasmine :)

Hi everyone,

Jasmine's internet has been on the fritz at home; while I'm helping her brainstorm ways to overcome this adversity, I thought I'd share some nice pics that Ms. Ebright took at the end of Harvest week #6 (July 22nd):

(click to make bigger!)

The only thing you can't see in the 'everything we picked is in plain view!" picture #2 is the green onions, which are in the orange bucket on the ground. Oh, and of course, you also don't see Ms. Ebright, who selflessly took herself out of the picture in order to snap the photos.

You may have noticed in your box the following:

- broccoli (some of it, admittedly wierd; I don't know why so few plants are making the usual singular, dense floret in the middle)
- beets
- cucumbers
- serrano peppers (little dark green ones)
- hungarian hot peppers (larger yellow ones)
- golden cherry tomatoes (like the last few weeks)
- a different kind of small tomato (golden and shaped like small eggs; more tomato-like sour than the gold cherries)
- eggplant
- green onions
- some people got some late radishes (I hope they still taste OK)

I see some kinds of other squash growing now (our patch seems to have survived the vine borers) and there are some other fruits which I won't mention here, for fear that thieves may go looking for them like they did our cucumbers!

All the best to you all this scorching week; you should get a post from Jasmine soon, or else I'm going to fire her.

Just kidding :)

Mr. Mikulski

The rains this week were a blessing!

So, Jasmine slipped a bit on her duties this week, and did not have a post for ya'll. So, I told her I'd send some pictures and give you all an update on the past couple of weeks. What we're most excited about out here is the fact that we got a bit of rain on TWO SEPARATE days this week. While they weren't the monsoon-like downpours that the roots of our lovely plants would have liked, the precipitation was at least enough to refresh them a bit.

Our 'pumpkin patch,' which is fighting off some nasty bugs right now...

Here's Jasmine cutting some vicious thorns off an eggplant fruit...

Today we harvested these goodies from our plot.... hooray!

We put down some nematodes into the pumpkin patch on Friday; in time, we'll be able to tell if they infect and kill the vine borer larvae like they are supposed to. We'll watch and see if any new plants start to wilt and display a hollow stem...

Also, the eggplants are starting to come in. This week, you'll get a 'baby' eggplant, but next week it'll be a bit bigger... and the following week, a bit bigger still :)

Other things to watch for... golden cherry tomatoes are coming in in spades, and we may have larger tomato varieties to offer in about two weeks. Also, in the next week or two, our cucumber plants (provided we ward off the dreaded cucumber beetles) will have some ample-sized fruits for us.

One box for each of our share members... with "pom d'oro"s to spare :)

Thank you all for your support throughout this endeavor -- the kids are certainly also thankful, both for the experience, and for the summer job (via their internship with me and CPS). Also, hopefully my folks can get a better idea of what our garden is looking like, with the overview pics that I'm including here:

I know it may not seem like much, mainly because we can't water like my grandma does (twice a day, for as much as the plants can drink) and also because we let the grass and weeds grow in between the rows to cut down on water being lost from the soil due to evaporation. But, if you're there in person, let me assure you that it is looking good! (our neighbor, soul legend Syl Johnson, came over today and said so himself :)

Until next time,
Mr. Mikulski

Bugs attack!

 Today, we watered the plants that were inside of the school.after, we went outside and we started watering the pumpkin plants and we started noticing that there were insects eating our plants. Mr. Mikulski caught one of the bugs, which had wings, in a red cup. This flying bug did not appear to be eating, but was attracted to the yellow flowers. There were dozens of them walking around inside them!

the cucumber beetles are in this cup

Later, I did some research on the internet and discovered that one of the insects that were eating our plants was the squash vine borer larvae, which at this stage in its development eats the inside of the plant.

the larvae ate up pretty much all of this plants stem!

The other insect was called the cucumber beetle, which was in the mating stage of its life cycle. We did a little research about it and found out ways to keep the bugs away from our garden in the future. We also found out a way to kill the bugs now. Our plan was to buy a container of nematodes and, using a baby syringe, apply it to the stem wherever we see the holes from the bug eating. Mr. Mikulski and I found out a way the nematodes work was to water the plants with worms and when the worms get inside of the grubs it will let out a bacteria inside of it and it will kill the grub.

After, we did our research we spent the rest of our time outside watering and mulching. We also had water while we were working.

WP harvest day #3, and first day of our internship

Yesterday on June 30th, 2012 was our third harvest day. Even though there was a big storm, but i still managed to come. I met Mr. Mikuski's wife's sister and she was from Germany. She helped out at the garden and also had a chance to harvest with us. We had to wait until the storm was over to pick our vegetables which took us about 30 minutes, but it was worth it. These are some of the things we picked listed below:

1). Beets
2). peppers(both yellow and green)
3). Tomatoes
4).Lettuce
5).  zucchini squash

After we picked our vegetables, we did a little weeding to kill some of the plants that weren't supposed to be there. Luckily, we did'nt have to water because there was so much rain.

That was Sunday. Today, Monday, was the first day of our paid internship. Mr. Mikulski found a way to have CPS pay us for our work in the garden. So, we started by doing a survey for our internship that mostly talked about how we carry ourselves. We had snacks and water before we went outside to plant. We planted salads and corn. Even though it was so hot outside i still wanted to plant so that our garden can become a big success. There were alot of bees outside that i never seen before that kind of made me scared. We drunk water so that we would'nt become dehydrated. After, we planted we watered it, because the sun was out and our plants can become thirsty without water.