The latest public meeting to discuss the future of the Logan neighborhood was intense.  70+ people showed up, representing the Logan neighborhood, the Philadelphia Redevelopment Authority (PRA), and the Logan neighborhood’s councilwoman, Cindy Bass’s,  office.  The meeting was organized by Paul Glover, and moderated by Scott Quitel and Rachael Griffith of the Land Health Institute.  In my previous post about this project, I mistakenly said that this was Paul Glover’s project, however, this was an incorrect statement.  Logan neighborhood agencies have been seeking action for almost 30 years.  Glover’s proposal merely merges longstanding neighborhood demands for fresh food, affordable housing, recreation, open space, and healthcare.  Sorry for my confusion!

Preliminary site sketch of the full 35 acres and Glover’s proposal for the Logan Orchard and Market. Yellow are greenhouses, little beads are solar cabins, blue squares are food processors, orange is free clinic, brown is market pavilion.

In the meeting, the community surrounding the Logan open space were able to voice their opinions about the past, and future of the space.  The common outcry from the community to officials was, “Where have you been?”  The number one concern from the neighborhood seemed to be that the Redevelopment Authority is not being open with the planning and development process, which has eliminated any trust between them and the community.  Even more upsetting is the fact that the Redevelopment Authority is funded with taxpayer dollars.  The community is paying for the testing and surveying of the land with their taxes, but they aren’t allowed access to the findings. Another concern is that the Redevelopment Authority has not been managing the land sufficiently.  Residents complained of garbage piles and overgrown shrubbery that degrades the quality of life in the community.  If the Redevelopment Authority claims to own the land, and wants to help the community, why are they letting the space go to the dumps?

Paul Glover urged the community to claim moral ownership by organizing and working together.  While this might be a dubious idea to the current owners of the land (the Redevelopment Authority), it’s not so far-fetched considering the recent history of the land.  I learned at the meeting that prior to 2012, much of the space was owned by the Logan Community Development Corporation, a community-run organization.  When the Logan CDC ran out of resources to sustain itself, the land was taken by the Redevelopment Authority by Eminent Domain. (the right of a government or its agent to expropriate private property for public use, with payment of compensation).  The Redevelopment Authority had been working with the Logan CDC on a plan to develop the space.  The community had been working with the Logan CDC to make sure their opinions were incorporated into the plan.  However, now that the Logan CDC is no more, the Redevelopment Authority plans on finishing the plan originally developed with the Logan CDC.  This appears fine at first, the Redevelopment Authority will complete a plan that had community input.  However, the Redevelopment Authority has been working with anonymous developers, and performing site analysis on the safety of the property without releasing any of this information to the community.

Paul Glover and the Land Health Institute are working on developing their own plan for the space. Kirtrina Baxter, a community organizer with the Garden Justice Legal Initiative at the Public Interest Law Center of Philadelphia, was one of the meeting’s attendees.  She explains, “The LOAM project proposal, originally was a concept of Paul Glover’s with the community in mind. It allowed for community collaboration & input throughout. Paul has been actively working with the community to include what they would like to see in this project, therefore making it a more of a community effort. Over the past 30 years the Logan community has participated in various such proposals, though because of economic challenges, nothing has been realized.”

However, many people in the audience said that they’re tired of hearing plans, and they want real action to take place on the site.  A critical step to the future of this space will be the unification of the community behind one plan.  Not only Glover’s LOAM plan, not only the Redevelopment Authority’s plan, but a unified plan of which the community can support and take ownership.  This is going to require the neighborhood to take action into their own hands, and for the Redevelopment Authority to open up communication and transparency, and to loosen their grip on control of the space.

In the short-term, Glover encouraged neighborhood residents to plant a pocket park, where they can start a small garden and community space.  If the Redevelopment Authority wants to come in and kick over the flowers planted by the community, it will only bring more attention to the future of this community space.  If relationships can be mended, this has the potential to be an amazing project for the community, and the city as a whole.

Peter McCoy, author of Radical Mycology, is coming to Heritage Farm in Philadelphia in September for a 2.5 day intensive on the “art, science, and regenerative applications of mushroom cultivation.”  This is sure to be a great learning experience!

Peter has a youtube channel, Radical Mycology, with some great information on cultivation.  He’s even got a video explaining how he trained mycellium to digest cigarette butts.

Participants will bring home 4 mushroom cultures, supplies, and a workbook.

This Mushroom Cultivation & Application Course covers the essential principles and practices of high yield mushroom production for all budgets. Starting with the fundamentals of cultivation, and progressively building in conceptual stages throughout the weekend, you will learn the empowering life skill of growing mushroom mycelium (spawn) and fruiting mushrooms in any environment. With an emphasis on the best techniques and tools that keep costs and complexity to a minimum, you will leave the course equipped to dive in to cultivating right away.

The approach Peter takes to working with fungi for food, medicine, and soil health not only teaches the skills of cultivation but also the concepts and principles that underlie them. By understanding both the how and why of cultivation, you will learn how to creatively adapt any project’s design to achieve consistently high yields in the home, garden, or on the farm.

Whether you are looking to grow your own edible and medicinal mushrooms for personal use or start a mushroom farm, this course will cover the core skills needed to hit the ground running.

When: September 18 – 20, Friday evening and full days on Saturday and Sunday

Where: Heritage Farm 4300 Monument Rd Philadelphia, PA

Cost: $225 per person

June 29th

7-9PM

4029 Market St Philadelphia, PA

This month, we’re showing several videos about Mushrooms! We’ll explore how mushrooms can be used for food, medicine, and healing the environment. We’ll cover a bit about the history of fungi, the amazing characteristics of these organisms, and some basic cultivation techniques.

We’ll be watching videos from:
Paul Stamets (Fungi.com)
Tradd Cotter (RadicalMycology.com)
Peter McCoy (RadicalMycology.com)
Steve Gabriel (FarmingTheWoods.com)

We’ll need to start at 7PM sharp, so arrive a little early! We have a hard cutoff at 9PM for the venue, but if the weather is nice, we can continue discussion / conversation outside the venue after 9PM.

Bring some food to share if you’d like, but also bring your own plate and utensils to reduce waste!

This month we’re going to watch this documentary on setting up a Permaculture-style farm operation.

Based on 20 years of applied theory and trial and error, biologist and educator Stefan Sobkowiak shares his experience transforming a conventional apple orchard into an abundance of biodiversity that virtually takes care of itself.

After the film, we’ll watch a 12 minute follow up film where some Frequently Asked Questions about the Permaculture Orchard are answered.

Here’s the follow up video, since we didn’t have time to watch it at Repair the World!  Thanks for the great conversation everyone!

Location:

Repair The World: Philadelphia
4029 Market St, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104

Time:

7-9:30 PM

Trailer:

https://www.facebook.com/events/1506569336262977/

On April 1st, Ma’ikwe Ludwig, Executive Director of the Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage in rural Missouri visited the Repair the World office in West Philly to share the practices that allow members of Dancing Rabbit to happily and bountifully live on just 10% of the resources that the average American consumes.  That’s the reduction in resource usage that scientists say we’ll all need to adjust to if we have a chance of minimizing the impacts of climate disruption, which threatens humanity with potential extinction.  Here’s a TEDx talk which covers some of what was discussed.

The talk was inspiring to say the least.  The members of Dancing Rabbit have been learning to live collectively, sharing resources, and minimizing their ecological footprint.  They’ve installed a utility-scale solar power system that allows them to export 2 times the electricity that they use in the village.  They also use composting toilets rather than wasting fresh water for human waste.  Open space in the village is for gardens, not lawns, and the village has a swimming pond which allows members to reduce reliance on showers.  The buildings utilize good passive solar designs and good old wood burning for extra heat.  Meals are cooked with solar ovens or haybox ovens whenever possible.  The members of the village don’t own personal vehicles, rather the village shares only a few.

Members are encouraged to “Eat Local, Organic, and Low on the Food Chain.”  However, I was surprised to hear that food transport accounts for only 11% of greenhouse gas emissions from the food industry.  So, “Eating local won’t solve all of our problems.”  Consumption of meat and dairy products make up a significant percentage of greenhouse gas emissions from U.S. food choices, leading many members of Dancing Rabbit to choose vegetarian or vegan diets.

Ma’ikwe revealed that the four secrets to the success of Dancing Rabbit were Creativity, Courage, Compassion, and Cooperation.  She also emphasized that conflict resolution, and inter-personal relationship work was a large part of what makes it possible for the 60+ member community to function.  In addition to these focus points, members of Dancing Rabbit live by 6 Ecological Covenants.

Ecological Covenants (more info here)

The 6th Principle of Permaculture is “Produce No Waste.” This month, we’re screening a film about one of the most wasteful products that is used by millions of people every day, plastic bags.

Our friend Jacques has access to a copy of the film “Bag It” through the Mount Airy food coop (Weaver’s Way). This documentary explores the value and safety of plastic bags and packaging.

http://www.bagitmovie.com/

Alisa Shargorodsky will facilitate a discussion afterwards. Alisa is doing a Master in Solid Waste Management at UPenn and is passionate about this issue.

Bring some food to share, if you’d like.

When: 27 April 2015 – Doors open at 6:45, and the film will begin at 7PM.

Where: Repair the World office – 4029 Market St. Philadelphia, PA

It was brought to my attention today that I had a typo for the date of the March movie screening.  The correct date is Wednesday March 25th at 4029 Market St in Philadelphia.  I apologize if this caused any inconvenience or confusion!

There’s a thick blanket of snow covering everything right now. I’m planning out my garden projects for the upcoming year, and scouring over seed catalogs. But with all this snow, there’s not much that I can do to be productive outside, right?

Wrong! There’s snow covering all the vegetation on the ground in my garden and local parks, but this is still a great opportunity to observe your region’s evolving ecology throughout the year. I took a walk yesterday at Loveless Nature Preserve near my apartment. It was tiring to trudge through the snow, but it was absolutely beautiful. I frequently stopped, stood still, and listened, smelled, and observed what happens in this forest on a snowy day. While meditating, I noticed changes happening in the forest that I might have otherwise missed. Cold winds made the tall canopy trees sway, raining down clouds of snow, and creating sounds that made me think someone might be walking up behind me. Some birds flew overhead, and I felt that I had a deeper connection and understanding of this place because I had experienced it in a new way. If you have time today, or this weekend, go check out what your local park is like on a quiet snowy afternoon. You won’t regret it!

This month, since Spring is just around the corner, we’ll examine some natural methods for your Spring Garden: Synergistic Gardening, Natural Farming, and No-Work Gardening.

Synergistic gardening is a system of organic gardening, developed by Emilia Hazelip. “After establishing the garden, there is no further digging, ploughing or tilling, and no use of external inputs such as manures and other fertilizers, or pesticides. Soil health is maintained by the selection of plants, mulching, and recycling of plant residues.”

Natural farming is an ecological farming approach established by Masanobu Fukuoka, a Japanese farmer and philosopher, introduced in his 1975 book The One-Straw Revolution. Fukuoka described his way of farming as “the natural way of farming” or “do-nothing farming”. The title refers not to lack of effort, but to the avoidance of manufactured inputs and equipment. Natural farming is related to fertility farming, organic farming, sustainable agriculture, agroforestry, ecoagriculture and permaculture but should be distinguished from biodynamic agriculture.

No-Work Gardening is a term invented by Ruth Stout to describe her method of gardening. She advocated heavy mulching to build healthy soil and control weeds.

Free Event!

When: Wednesday March 25th 7-9PM

Where: Repair the World Office 4029 Market St Philadelphia, Pa 19104

Facebook page:  https://www.facebook.com/events/1390682234568527/