What’s in the ground:

Hopefully anything you’ve transplanted is looking great and you’re having a lot of success with any seeds you germinated directly in the soil. But even if your transplants took or your seeds popped through, but they don’t seem to be growing at the rate you’d expect, shocking your plants with some fertilizer is a great idea. If you just want to go and buy something, and those miracle grow commercials just aren’t selling you, fish emulsion is a great fertilizer. Many people use Neptune, but I’ve been using stuff from a company called Schaffer. They get their fish from invasive carp that are destroying the eco system of the Illinois River. Not exactly local, but sustainable nonetheless.

If you are more of a homemade kind of person, you can make a compost tea by taking a five gallon bucket of water, put some really nice compost (vermicompost is great) in an old sock, and circulate water through it (an auquarium pump usually works).

Just make sure that when you spray down the plants, you hit the soil and not the actual plant. Also, it’s best to do this when plants are maturing and not at full maturity, especially when you are doing fruting plants like tomatoes or eggplant. Too many nutrients can make too much vegetative growth and not enough fruit growth. But we still have a few more weeks until we’re even thinking of tomatoes, so let’s till that ground when we get there.

What’s going on in sustainability:

This past weekend I went out to Chester County for the Sly Fox Goat Race. A good friend of mine entered two of his parents’ goats and had two friends race them. I guess there’s a reason the event falls on the same day as Kentucky Derby Day, I felt like a promoter as I traveled with the entrouge, eyeing the competition, prepping the goats. I felt like I needed a straw hat, a cigar and should have been taking bets on the side. I was also surprised by all of the West Philly faces I saw out there, which led me to two observations.

The first is that although my basic morals stopped me from declining into such shady undertakings, there was also a natural boundary. My friends all rely on the goats for our monthly goat cheese our friend brings back to the city when he visits his parents. And even with other goat owners, that respect drew a fine line between competition and just good old fun.

My next point is that most city folks wouldn’t think that racing goats is good old fun. But as I said, after seeing a good amount of West Philly folks out there, even a few of the boys from Hoots and Hellmouth, I noticed an amazing blending of cultures. It made me appreciate the great resources us Philly Folks have in Chester County. Getting out there, racing goats and jumping in the river are neccessary outlets if I want to keep my energy of urban homesteading going.

Hope to have a few more days like that this summer. But until then, this is the note from the urban homestead.