I went to Greensgrow which was every bit as awesome as its reputation. I’m trying to grow as many different kinds of basil as I can in the front yard — in the house where pesto is an automatic in at dinner time, basil is king — and I picked up two plants from them. Called Valentino Basil, it looks a bit more crinkly than Genovese but not quite as wild as the Basil Lettuce Leaf I’ve ordered from Seed Savers. Once I’ve got those plants going, I’m going to try and get a plant from each of the big box stores to see how they all compare. As I find other nurseries, I’ll add them to the mix. With about 45 square feet, I’ve got plenty of room for many, many plants.

Unfortunately, I did see a cat doing some business in my fresh soil. I’m going to try chicken-wire on top of the dirt, which supposedly keeps the cats away.

And I got a bunch of lettuces that had already been started (picture in the raised bed below). I got two “Read Sail”, two green leaf, and one funkily named green leaf that I’ll record tomorrow. I like the idea of having lettuce that you can pick regularly and eat right away. I like that the seed packets all say “sow continuously.”

One worry: my soil, which was supposed to be a mix of mushroom soil and top soil, was crusty this evening. I know that we’ve had no rain but still, I though the mix would provide enough “stuff” to keep the soil from drying this way. I need to get busy with my compost; I feel as though last year’s pile is good for flowers but that the new bin, where I’ve been very careful about what’s gone into it, won’t be ready for awhile. May have to buy some compost…

Flowers: I’m going to try and grow a range of sunflowers in the big pots in the back but I also picked up some PANSIES — SUPREME clear blue sky and SUPREME yellow — for the pots up front. Planted them very close together with the thought that I would have to regularly add compost to keep them healthy.
We’ll see if they survive Easter Weekend without being stolen.

Last thing: got some great deals at the Re-store on some gardening stuff. Two tall trellises I want to use for beans and cukes for $4 each!

I have an awesome neighbor. He’s done many things, from serving in the navy to playing sax in a funk band to developing an inexpensive way to install a solar array on Philadelphia area homes. And sometime in the next few years, we’ll invest the sweat equity and put the panels on our roof.

In the meantime, we switched over to The Energy Coop for our electricity. We picked the all renewable plan which will mean that we’ll pay between eight and fifteen more dollars each month but that all of our energy will be produced through renewable sources (they have a cool graph here) as opposed to PECO where almost 50% of the energy is generated by coal.

When I called with questions, I was struck by how many of my questions were political in nature. The nuts and bolts aren’t that complicated — they take over the generation and transmission charge while PECO continues to be bill for distribution — but I wanted to know why more people wouldn’t make this switch. For $100-150 a year more, you could support an organization that’s trying to build an alternative infrastructure and one whose energy source has a much, much smaller environmental footprint. In terms of my great neighbor, doesn’t it make more sense to support an organization that’s affecting change across PA as opposed to financing and putting together my own power system, one that will really only serve me? What responsibility does a community have to each other, i.e., why couldn’t blocks organize around this issue? Why is the only reason most folks switch because of cost? What kind of campaign could get families and companies to think about these issues?