I am really bad at keeping up with my journal. Online anyway; the conventional version is not spared. I have a few excuses though, and will summarize below.

September 2009: I joined the volunteer efforts of PRooF (Philadelphia Rooftop Farm), a group of gardeners, architects, builders and industrial designers who intend to increase fresh food access and local food production by transforming Philadelphia rooftops into thousands of acres of viable farmland. To date we have designed a prototype program, learned a lot about city codes, have had discussions with some interested city officials, and worked with the Community Design Collaborative to provide a design for modular, flexible, self watering planters that can be retrofitted onto any row or twin house in the city. We are currently in the process of fundraising, and you can help by voting for one of our grants through the Just Means website.

October 2009: Operation make my own line of skin care products commenced. I began researching, researching, and researching some more, and finally experimenting with making my own recipes. I had been uneasy with the whole skin care industry for a while, and then the Environmental Working Group came out with Skin Deep: The Cosmetic Safety Database. This is the same group that has created the Shopper’s Guide to Pesticides in Produce, the Sunscreen Safety Guide, launched the Kid-Safe Chemicals campaign, and has compiled data and published numerous reports on things like bottled water and cell phone radiation to name a few. Anyway, I’ve used just about every common drug-store cosmetic and had started going a more natural route after about 25 years of dissatisfaction. When I saw how many carcinogenic and toxic ingredients (affecting the environment and its wildlife, internal organs, developmental and reproductive systems, the brain and the immune system) are in everyday products we rub on ourselves I began to think the goal of the cosmetic industry was to kill women. Literally. Even in my “natural” and “organic” products I was finding parabens (cancer-causing preservatives used to extend shelf life) and SLS (sodium lauryl/laureth sulfates; sudsing agents that wreak all sorts of havoc on our skin and the environment. In fact, if you have problems with canker sores or eczema you may want to try eliminating these ingredients from your toothpaste, soaps, shampoos, and laundry detergents and see what happens). So I researched the ingredients in the “natural” products I was using, learned all about emollients, humectants, emulsifiers, thickeners, stabilizers, and preservatives, researched straight-from-the-earth alternatives including beneficial plants and oils, looked into some age-old beauty recipes, and started working on my own formulations. By December I had struck gold, and had a non-foaming cleanser and light moisturizer that I was using on a daily basis. I made Christmas gifts for the special women in my life, and since then have developed cleansing grains and chapstick, and a few days ago I made my first shampoo. Hopefully I will have enough time and money in the near future to get a table at the farmers markets and start getting the idea out there. Local, fresh, non-toxic, handmade. This is what I bring to the table. And when you stop using poison on your skin the result is truly beautiful skin.

February 2010: I started working full time at Zimmerman Studio LLC. Right now it’s just Pam and myself, renting office space from Friday Architects/ Planners Inc. (founded 40 years ago by my thesis advisor). We are doing mostly university/ institutional work, including the Eva-Jane Coombe Special Collections Suite at Bryn Mawr College, and a number of laboratory renovations for the University of Pennsylvania. Keeps me busy. This is also the same time I began starting tomatoes and peppers indoors, and later herbs and flowering annuals for the summer growing season.

March 2010: I was a featured volunteer for the Community Design Collaborative: click here for the full story.

April 2010: I began preparing the gardens for the 2010 season; cleaning up and readying planters, killing off my first winter cover crop experiment (that I planted way too late), cleaning up dead leaves, cutting back dead flower stalks left for winter decoration and for birds, and direct seeding cold crops of lettuce and chard. I also entered my backyard into the City Gardens Contest sponsored by the Philadelphia Horticultural Society.

May 2010: I began hardening off plants that I had overwintered (cacti, sages, geraniums, jasmine) and my 2010 starter plants. I also decided to build 2 large planters instead of putting the vegetables directly in the ground. Last year I began getting into the roots of the Japanese Maple I planted a few years back, so the planters will avoid this hassle and I think they’ll also make readying the soil for following years A LOT easier. Goodbye clay. The planters are made from free wood palettes, construction wire and 4mil. plastic (to keep the dirt and the moisture in behind the slats), and bolts with washers to hold the sides together. Each planter cost around $15. They were filled with a soil mix of peat moss, compost and vermiculite (around $70 for a 42″ square x 20″ deep planer), and in went the tomatoes, peppers, pole beans and herbs.

Currently I’m working on my next strategy to save the world and pay my bills. I’ll keep you posted when I figure that out. And hopefully I’ll write more in the mean time.