Stropharia aka Garden Giant Mycelium spawned to garden bed

My buddy Brian gave me some Stropharia spawn a few months back that I have been running out onto fermented woodchips.  The woodchips are finally fully colonized, and I spread them throughout the mulch around my garden.  Hopefully it will outcompete the Alcohol Inky Cap mushrooms in the garden, and Ill have some Garden Giant mushrooms in the Spring!  Heres some photos:

The woodchips colonizing in the burlap sack, buried in a small hole.

The mycelium is exploding with life!

So good!

Im hoping that the Stropharia will out-compete these inky cap mushrooms, which are edible, but toxic when eaten within 3 days of consuming alcohol.  Thats no fun...

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Herb Spiral in West Philly Community Garden

Over the past two weekends I spent some time building an herb spiral at a community garden at 37th and Brown St in West Philadelphia.  All the bricks were found in the surrounding neighborhood, and the soil from the Philadelphia Horticultural Society Community Garden next door.  This little garden is maintained by Growing Home, a non-profit organization trying to empower communities to grow their own food on the unused land in their neighborhoods.  This herb spiral was built entirly for free with reclaimed or donated materials.  Everything besides the corn was seeded, since we didnt have transplants available.  Hopefully in a few weeks Ill stop back and see how its doing.  Check out the photos!

After the first day.

Alex and Elissa from Growing Home

Corn Planted!

Heres the seeds that we planted

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SAGE Collective Aquaponic setup in Trenton NJ

I recently disassembled the 105 gallon aquaponic setup in Philly, but Im reusing some of those components for a system in Trenton, NJ at an Art Collectives studio space.  The SAGE Coalition is a group of local artists that do public murals, run a community garden, and host art gallery shows at their studio.  The Gandhi Garden is a beautiful community garden transformed by Graham Apgar, Jonathan Gordon, and other members of the SAGE Coalition and local residents.  Ive only met Graham and Jonathan so far, but Im excited to meet more of the artists here.  Heres what the Gandhi Garden looks like:

Heres some photos of our work so far:

Each shelf has a fluorescent light underneath.  I think we might remove one shelf to give each row some more space.  The goal is to eventually have the entire shelf be aquaponic grow beds connected to the 55 gallon tank on the floor.  Unfortunately, some rocks got into my aquarium filter, so Ill just be using a pump with no additional filter.  I am planning on making a radial flow filter to test out, but its not a priority at the moment.  I just received the pump in the mail, and am waiting for a uni-seal to arrive, then well get some water flowing to the grow bed.

Im currently off-gassing the chlorine from the tap water.  The pH is balanced, and Ive added some ammonia to start cycling.  Hopefully in a few weeks this will be flowing!

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Aquaponics Facility at Cheyney University in West Chester PA

Wow, I cant believe I just found out about this.  While reading about the Riverbend Environmental Education Centers planned aquaponics facility, I found out that theres a 10,000 square foot aquaponic basil farm in West Chester, PA.  I work in West Chester, so Ill definitely need to check this place out and try to get a tour on my lunch break one of these days.

http://www.cheyney.edu/pr/news/21950/5700/no

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