After a couple of years on a waiting list, this winter I got into one of Philadelphia’s hidden gems: the greenhouse in the Horticultural Center in West Fairmount Park, run by the city’s department of parks and recreation. Part of the building is open to the general public. Another part of the facility is a working, commercial-grade greenhouse, half of which is used by parks & rec employees to grow seedlings for gardens in public parks and community recreation centers all over town. The other half of the greenhouse is occupied by a community propagation program. Community gardens, nonprofits, for-profit growers, and individual Philadelphians like me can rent an 8’x3′ table for $50 for the propagation season, which runs from the February through May. So, as I said, after waiting for a couple of years, I’m in, and have wasted no time getting my crops going.
It’s the third week of February, and I’m largely alone so far. Do my greenhouse neighbors know something that I don’t about the folly of getting such an early start? We’ll see.
By the third week of February, few of the other growers in the propagation program have gotten started, but I have eight or 10 different crops underway already including rutabaga, rapini, kale, chard, cilantro, arugula, sprouting daikon radish, three or four varieties of lettuce and lots of spinach.
I’m planning to put the spinach out in my garden, under a floating row cover, in early March, followed by the lettuce a week or two later. We’ll see how that goes.
One of the propagation program tables near mine
Another table near mine with a myriad of herbs
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