It's been awhile

There has been a long pause in my blog entries, the reasons for which are health, weather, laziness, and me wanting to have my thoughts fully processed in my mind before I write it. I have had some extended breaks from my garden that have caused me to see different perspectives on what my garden could represent in my life. As usual, I've also lost a bunch of plants. And with all that, I still find the encouragement I need to keep working the land and celebrate the life that does come.

The first thing I learned, from my health not being good and the weather holding me back from biking, was that the garden was a pretty accurate description of my long-distant relationships (family/friends). The fact that I couldn't get to the garden everyday and that I had to ride a good distance to get there, as well as the fact that sometimes I just couldn't get there to tend it, showed me insights into the fact that I really am limited in being able to consistently communicate and be with the people I care about around the world. (No, I'm not using that as an excuse to not try, because just like with my garden I try and do as much as I can.). The significant side of all this isn't me realizing that, but the fact that out of around 100 plants, of over 20 varieties, the only things that grew were squash and beans. That really opened my eyes to the fact that at home as well as around the world, I've seen certain seemingly random relationships ending up producing fruit, where as some of the other plants that I might have longed to flourish, didn't seem to hold up in the distance. So I've learned to celebrate the squash and beans in my life, and be satisfied with reality. I've been loving eating the squash each day as well.

The second thing I've learned over this extended break is once again, how amazing composting is. Instead of me getting disheartened over the lack of "success" in my last 3 months of gardening, I've been spurred on knowing that with the death from this season, I'll be able to turn into compost for the next. And it will continue to build from there. Maybe by next year, or the year after, the garden (and my life) will be better soil for new seeds to flourish.

As for my laziness... well... still got a little ways to go. I've grown a lot, but long-distance gardening at 6am is still a bit out of my reach. 6am surfing on the other hand, is a little closer. Ha.

Plant update:

• The girl Madison's plants are the best growing plant I've had so far (maybe it's because of her innocence. Ha). Her Squash is great, as well as her Tomatoes.
• My herbs: are growing great. I had my first fresh peppermint leaf tea a few days ago. I've got Basil, Oregano, Rosemary, and possibly Oregano. 
• In the Garden: I've got the Squash growing great. There are 4 big squash plants. The beans are done. 9 Garlic cloves. And I have some really late transplanted tomatoes that I'm praying will survive and produce fruit. A cucumber plant. 
• In Pots I've got the herbs, as well as some corn that is growing fast.
• The Sunflowers have now bloomed and are struggling to stand on their own so I've supported them.
  

More Pics

Here are a few pictures from a week or 2 ago. Hopefully I'll have some current ones up soon. This is just my red bean sprouts, cherry tomatoes, and garlic.

Pics of Maddo and I

Pushing through Spring

I've put off posting on here because I've been waiting for some pictures from 2 different friend's cameras, but decided I should just write now, and do the pictures later.

I've continued to base all of my gardening decisions on what people either give me or what I find along the way. With that I've come across some really healthy limitations, as well as some fun collisions of my desires and friend's generosity. The garden is still on the rough road to bringing life, and hasn't really done much improving on the death to life ratio, but right when it get's knocked back someone who is oblivious to the current situation sparks more inspiration into me.

One of those inspirations came from my friend's 4 year old Madison, who told me that she wanted to grow something in a pot. So I got a pot, soil, and seeds for her. When I asked her what she wanted to plant she said "Tomatoes and Squash" (I don't know why she chose squash). The tomato has already sprouted, but the squash is still germinating. That was really encouraging for me and reminded me of the life you can get out of not just gardening, but also just how fun it is to hang out with kids and teach them a bit of how things work (I feel like I'm a kid when it comes to garden knowledge, though.).

Two other cool things were that I had a friend who decided to give me 6 packets of seeds which were amazing...Cucumbers, Oregano, Thyme, Peppermint, Okra, and Sweet Corn. Once again the timing was great for encouraging me, and so I push on through Spring as I now start to see things popping up throughout my garden. The other cool thing is that I found a plant at the store called Chocolate Mint, and it completely lives up to it's name. It smells exactly like a chocolate mint candy, and I'm told that the leaves taste similar too, which means I'll be making some awesome teas.

As far as life metaphors go, I've changed my approach to the garden and tried to remove the rows I had created, based on the advice of a knowledgeable friend. He said you can get three times as much out of a garden if you grow it the way it would in nature. What he meant was to let the climbing beans climb, and let the tomato plants sit under the climbers, and then have the root based plants be under those. So that you have layers as well as a full garden. It's not as pretty, but I like the idea a lot, and it's taken some of the structure out of my approach. This wasn't just for the sake of that idea, but also because my friends said my rows were actually probably worse than to have it flat (for the terrain I'm working with). In that I've also started just sowing much more generously and in almost any place that's reasonable. With that as my approach, I'm left to waiting, and to be surprised by what comes up and what doesn't. This has lead me to a question about God, that I heard, and I really like. "Is God ever surprised by what good things sprout up and takes root in our lives?" I really like to see God working hard, and sowing all these good things into me, but then being surprised when some of it pops up in a random creative way in my life. If he's not, then I am at times. There are many more metaphors... far too many about death at the moment, but I don't want this to be a labor to read for you. Things on the horizon include Aloe Vera, Pomegranate, possibly a Venus Fly Trap, pineapple again, and hopefully some corn. For now I've got lot's of new things growing, which hopefully will be a accurate reflection of my daily life, relationships, activities, etc.

Underestimated my enemy

You really can use statistics to say whatever you want. It turned out that right after my last post I visited my garden to find that my two capsicum, two cucumbers, and two squash seedlings, were brought from about a foot height down to one inch nubs of stems. This brought me to a different, but just as valid, perspective of my gardening thus far. The last post was more of a celebration, but those statistics were all about the success I've seen, but didn't mention the death and failure that has come as well. I realized out of my 40 (now 34 or less) plants that are growing now, I had already lost right around 40 plants as well. Mostly to snails, but some others have failed just due to conditions. This led me into a mourning period where I had to do some reflecting on what I had learned as well as why I was doing all this. It didn't help that the first thing God had told me was that my garden would be a direct reflection of my life.

So I had to start looking at the metaphors, at the same time that I regrouped with a new plan for what to plant and how to do it. I talked with my friend who is knowledgeable in anything having to do with plants, and he told me, to my disbelief, that it was snails, and said that I must have A LOT of them. So with that news, I finally decided to pull out the snail pellets, and today when I went back found around 100 dead snails scattered around my plants and garden. I think there are more as well. So all in all, I have deeply underestimated my enemy, and it's cost my garden a lot. But I've learned a lot as well, and as usual it's bringing fresh perspective to my life and how to go about each day. 

Once again it's all about the process, as far as my gardening goes, so it takes a bit of the pain out bad results. On a lighter note, right as each set back has occurred, there has been a friend who randomly decides they want to donate to my garden. The day after seeing my plants destroyed, my friend Chris gave me 90 sunflower seeds. Which was really encouraging as well as fun to think about all the crazy options for guerrilla gardening. I've just been given a bunch of pots and soil, which is also very timely.  My garlic, red beans, and cherry tomatoes are looking really good right now. One thing to look forward to is my avocado seed, which I'm hoping will sprout this week as well. Unfortunately the pineapple didn't take root, so I'll have to try another one.

I'll have some pictures on here as well in the next day or two.

14 different plant types, 40 total plants

I don't know how it happened, because it's felt like such a slow easy natural pace for me in getting into gardening, but now I've just counted the plants I have and realized that I have 14 different types of plants, and 40 total plants growing. That's ridiculous! I've got 4 or 5 more that I'm about to plant once I prepare the soil as well. And it hardly takes up much of my lifestyle or time. It's just been laid back easy going gardening. I've been learning a lot, as usual, from it as well as finding it very life-giving (pun intended). I decided last week that I wanted to try out growing a pineapple by cutting off the crown of a pineapple. It's not the right climate here so I have to raise it indoors for most of it's early stages of life. It will take 2 years before it starts producing it's first pineapple. Which is one thing I love about it. I like how gardening seems to slow down my perception of life and time.

I did my first guerrilla gardening adventure by planting 2 sunflowers in my friends' backyard as a gift, because they just had twins. I had to do it during heavy rain, lightning, and hail, which made it pretty memorable. I'm thinking it will be awhile before they notice, because they'll be busy with the babies.

My seeds are becoming seedlings and now my garden has a nice covering of mulch. I don't have pictures of it at the moment, but I'll try and get some. Hope you're enjoying the journey. Here is my list so far of what I'm growing at the moment.

Italian tomatoes x5  
Cherry tomatoes x5
Basil x6
Rosemary 1
Beet-root x4
squash x3
capsicum (bell pepers) x2
cucumbers x2

garlicx2
shallots x3
lettuce x3
eggplant 1
sunflowers x4
pineapple 1

Snails: My Enemy

So, after a few weeks of seeing absolutely nothing come up, out of my whole crop of basil, tomatoes, squash, and beet-root, I talked with a permaculture friend and he knew exactly what it was. He said that it had nothing to do with my soil or me doing anything wrong, but that what was happening was that as soon as my plants sprouted up, probably in the night sometime, snails would come and eat them up. So by the time I got there it looked like nothing had happened at all.

I'm debating over methods of warfare to use. I don't think I have it in me to use salt. And I can't use snail pellets because my friend's cat could eat them. I've found some homemade recipes, but haven't picked one yet. So far my first step is to gather a bunch of plastic bottles that I'll use as walls around my plants. I started with my new sunflowers that I transplanted yesterday.

I think that these snails might be symbolic of things in my life like procrastination, which I can see, but think that it won't be a problem. And it eats away at all these things that would've been sprouting in my life, but get's killed before I even know it's there.  Hmmm, I don't think I'll expand much more than that, because it could bore you, but as usual I'm finding parallels.

There have been even more big openings through some generous friends who are want to support and who even have extra supplies that they want to give me. One friend is going to be giving me more seeds (including corn) as well as a worm farm, which will be really good for my garden as well as for learning. I've been offered so much that I'm just about at the point of having to turn some of it down. I start gardening for that handicap organization on Thursday, so I'm getting excited for that. Looks like I'll be able to do it for 2 to 3 different homes, but one at a time of course. We'll see how that goes.

Sunflower sprouts

My sunflowers have sprouted overnight, from nothing to an inch high. I was stoked because this is my first plant to pop up.

My other seeds have yet to arise, which is making things difficult, because a weed is taking over the garden, and as soon as my plants pop up I want to cover the ground with a thick mulch, but can't yet.

Other than that, the best part of the week is that I get to work with an organization that takes care of severely disabled people, and I get to garden their houses, and I will have a government grant that will supply everything I need for it. So it's basically the best thing I could dream of. I get to hang out with them while I garden. I also get to play music for them, which will be fun. I'll have pictures of all that once I get started. Also, my friends have asked me if I would be willing to plant a tree in their backyard, so I'll be jumping into that new field as well, which will be fun. Have to find a tree that will grow fast, thick, but not too high because of power lines. We'll see how that goes.

Day 6-7: Aesthetics

I'm losing track of how many days I've been working so I think this will be my last "day #" post.

This morning felt great, not just because of the weather, but also because I got to rest my legs yesterday and found I was able ride my bike in my highest gears the whole way, even on the hills, which means that riding 5 days a week is actually getting me in shape. I love that I can do both biking and gardening together.

I was hoping to see my veggies starting to peek out of the soil, but it's not quite time yet. It's been seven days since I planted them, so at some point by the end of this week they will be appearing. So with that as the reality of the day, that meant I wouldn't get to lay down my new bag of sugarcane mulch that my friends gave me. So I watered the plot, and then I decided it was time to tackle all the weeds and grass that was covering the other parts of the garden.

I cleared one whole side of the yard that had not bee weeded in a long time and was really starting to feel some fatigue in my fingers as well as my arms and back. I decided once again to try and find a metaphor that would help me stay motivated to be diligent in weeding that area. The first thing that stood out to me was that these weeds I was pulling, had absolutely no effect on the health of my vegetables and was really not needing to be done. The second thing that came to mind was that it really didn't look good at all with the weeds there. These both came together for me and showed me that if I want my garden to be a blessing to others, I would need to to make it as inviting as possible for them, so that they want to go and eat from it. Weird I know, but I say it that way so that I can make the metaphor clear. I realized that many people would look at the garden and not see past the weeds that surround it to see that the vegetables and herbs were great, and that might keep them from being able to experience the blessing inside.

So with this I was seeing how if my life was a garden, I have a lot of great things deep inside of it that would be good and would feed others, but if I don't pay attention to the weeds and trash on the outsides of my life, people will never enter to find what's really inside. One weed that came to mind that I've been able to clear out is swearing, which I used to do all the time in high school. I don't have a moral conviction against it and I would say that it doesn't affect the core fruits and veggies I have to offer, but I know that for some they would see it as a weed and would have no desire to enter. I don't want to focus on my aesthetics than my garden, but I do want to be applying time when I have it, to make myself as inviting as I can. It sounds cheesy, but it helped my weed that whole section of the yard.

The other side of it of course, is to not judge someone else by the weeds that you first see when you meet them. I'm finding that everyone has weeds surrounding their garden/life, but everyone also has amazing exotic fruit trees, and vegetables that I need, and am not able to grow in my garden/life. It's a challenge to look past the weeds, and also maybe help them with the weeds.

Okay, I think that's enough of that analogy. All in all I'm loving each morning, and get excited just thinking about seeing the seedlings pop up, laying out some mulch, adding to the compost, weeding the other sections that need it, and whatever else I'll need to do.

Oh, planted two sunflower seeds in separate newpaper pots for an intercession time that we had last week, and I've been taking good care of them. Once they are a good size I'll be transplanting them somewhere. So when they pop up as well, I'll try and get some photos. Hope you're enjoying this blog as much as I am. It's a bit long I know. At least you don't have to hear my talk about it, because I say a lot more than I write.

Day 5-6: Compost

First off, I'm really excited and thankful about how this garden has been a way for all these people to jump in and support me in it. I've been given everything that I've used, planted, worked with, etc. It's been really encouraging to have everyone pitching in what they have. Thanks everyone.

Compost has stolen my heart so far. I can't believe that I didn't even know what it was or that it was possible until a couple months ago. I will briefly explain composting for all the people who don't know what it is. It's normally done in some sort of covered container, inside of which you put different layers of green organic material, brown dead organic material, newspaper, food scraps, (pretty much anything that was once alive and hasn't been cooked) etc. You maintain it by keeping it wet, and by turning it over every once and awhile. The whole time it's sitting, it's actually got bacteria inside that are slowly eating away at the materials and turning it into a fresh nutrient rich soil like mixture. Then when you have enough of that you can take it and mix it back into your soil in the garden.

My love for compost isn't completely based on it's physical job, but more on it's similarities for my life, and what I want my life to be for myself and others. My journey over the last few years has been aimed personally at being "real" in my life and my relationship with God, but the only way to do that is to take all the "death" that has happened, or been apart of my life and others I care about, and bring it to God to walk me through it and give real answers and healing to those situations and wounds I have. As I've done this I've grown a love and longing for Truth to be what dictates my life and decisions. It's been amazing and has been a source of true healing, strengthened and reconciled relationships, and begun to open my eyes to what real "Life" is. But it requires some very hard yards in dealing with death. And I see all that in composting, where you take all the death from the garden and the kitchen, and focus it in one place, and then wait as the bacteria (God) slowly works its way through the death and turns it into the best soil mixture you could ever want.

I want my life to be composting as I go and get it with tragedies, wounds, sickness, etc. And I want to be able to help others compost their garden's death and waste. This is the first time I've found a clear example of what's been on my heart for the last year or so, and I'm sure I'll be talking more about it for many more years to come.

Pictures

It's too bad I didn't get the pictures from the first few days. It's changed a lot. These pictures show the area I've cleared and now planted in. The bottom row being basil, the middle row (with the bamboo stakes) is tomatoes, and the top row is half beetroot and half squash. There is a picture of my Rosemary seedling, and then of one of my 2 compost bins. Hope you enjoy these. There will be more to come. This morning I started clearing out another section, so I can maybe be ready to plant more in 2 weeks.

Day 4: Sowing seeds

Don't worry, I'll hopefully have pictures up by tomorrow.

So today would not have the same significance if it weren't for yesterday's questions. I was confronted with what my dreams and expectations are for the next 3 to 4 months and what the actual needs are for the community I belong to. I realized (thanks to some friends) that I had these seemingly good desires for this season to be a chance for me to really explore and engage in a wide range of my strengths and passions all at the same time, with them taking up almost all of my focus. But as usual life has much more going on than just my world (especially in community). I had to stop and think about the fact that there is going to be a lot of areas where my help/service will be needed and it will have nothing to do with my strengths or passions, but will have to do with blessing the people around me who I'm covenanting to do life with.

So how does this relate to my garden? I realized once again that the garden was a mirror of my life. That those strengths and passions I have were my 6 packets of seeds. That my limits in time, responsibilities, and the needs of the people around me were all the different limitations that my garden faces as well, but have different names: timing, soil, space, sunlight, myself, etc. I wanted to plant them all and just have a super garden, but knew I couldn't handle it. So me that was what I needed to weigh up today... What to plant?

I'm not sure which one (life or the garden) has the power to change the other, so today I decided to start by choosing a path for my garden that hopefully will reflect in my life for the next few months. I chose to only plant a small amount of my seeds. Half what I really wanted (Tomatoes and Basil), and half what others had asked me to grow, but I really didn't care about (beetroot and squash). It's interesting knowing you're going to be putting around 3 months of hard work and care into plants that you know you won't even want when they're ripe, and will just be giving away. It was a great feeling though to plant them as a sign of my commitment to be serving others at a cost to myself. Who knows, maybe I'll grow to like beetroot by the end of all this.

So now it's time for the germination to begin, and in 6-10 days I'll be seeing green. I think I might have planted way too much squash, so I'll be having to eat and give away loads of that in December. Let me know if you want some for Christmas. That offer is only for people in Australia though. Unless you want to pay for the shipping.

Tomorrow I'll be back to weeding and plowing a new section, as well as starting a compost heap.

Oh, and I'm thinking of buying some Giant Sunflower seeds and planting them around town where I live, which would be awesome. I'll keep you posted on that as it unfolds.

Day 3

By the way, I'm numbering these days by when I work, not the actual amount of days since I started.

I started today really excited, because yesterday I was given five new packets of seeds which brings my inventory to be Tomatoes, Basil, Carrots, Shallots, Climbing Beans, Beech root, and Squash. I also was given money, which allowed me to go to Bunnings and be overwhelmed by the gardening section. I decided while I was there to buy a Rosemary seedling, but to wait on buying other stuff, because I have no clue what I'm doing.

So this morning I was really wanting to plant the Rosemary, and then to get more good soil onto my plot, so I could plant by next week. But when I got there and looked at the area I had cleared I realized that I had only cleared what I thought I needed and then the rest of the yard I had left the way it was. My gardening mantra then came into my head. "Your garden is a reflection of yourself." I realized that I was only thinking about what I needed and making that part great, but I had paid no attention to the surrounding plants, weeds, or the yard. This was boding as a poor reflection, given my goals are to be always reaching out and giving to others. So I, changed my work plans and spent almost the whole time clearing out further sections of the yard of weeds, plastic, dead lizards, etc. and plowing it to break up the soil.

In the end I used my newly cleared section to plant my rosemary at the bottom of the sloped area, so that it's aroma would drift up to the soon to be veggie areas. This is because Rosemary's aroma is known to keep away pests.

So in all, I'm being challenged and learning every step of the way thus far. And now I have my first plant. woohoo.

Day 2

Besides the personal refreshment that comes from an early morning ride and outdoor work, I had a few more metaphors in what I was doing that are helping me in my quest to really discover what true life is.

I did a bit more weeding today, which brought up the question for myself about why I was killing off life, in order to make room for the type of life I wanted to have. For me I felt that the answer was in the fact that life is all around, and there are many different forms of it. From a human life point of view, there are many different paths you can take in life. Some are very easy and don't need much to make them happen, but they are weeds, and they produce nothing, and the seem to draw away from other plants around them. But There are other paths you can take in life that require a lot more effort, and diligence, as well as risk. But those paths, like some vegetables, not only produce life giving results, but also are beneficial to the plants around them and will continue to produce if they are well maintained.

So with that said, I felt like removing the weeds was not me bringing death, but actually me saying no to the fruitless life, and "yes" to a harder more life-giving path for my garden.

The other thing I did was transfer good soil from one part of the yard to where I was going to plant. This really brought a new perspective for me on the saying "The whole Earth is full of His glory" because I realized, maybe for the first time fully, that soil has the potential to produce life. Even in Genesis, it says that Man came from the dust. I seriously have underestimated dirt.

Still have more work to do before I plant, but I'm realizing its not a race, and that there is something to learn from each step in the process.

Day 1

I got on my bike at 6:25am to get to the soon to be garden and start working away. The first thing I did, which took up my whole time was getting rid of the weeds. Which can be a bit tedious and frustrating given my usual work ethic, which ignores the details and cuts corners. But this was going to be a stepping out in something new, and the first thing I felt God spoke to me while I was working was that "your garden is a reflection of yourself". I'm thinking this will become a mantra for me as I continue to pursue this avenue of bringing life.

So far it feels great to just be up and doing a bit of sweaty work for awhile before I even start my day. I'm so thankful that my friends have allowed me to use their yard as my canvas.

Why Garden?

I've been on a long journey with this whole subject that started more out of conversations about nutrition and diet than it did out of anything having to do with getting my hands dirty. Through those conversations, I was beginning to be amazed at how much better nature is at giving us what we need than we are. The first steps were small steps in my diet, where I would eat more veggies and fruit, but it started to build to bigger things, and started to broaden my eyes to the world of agriculture and gardening.

Beyond that, I've been growing an interest in community development for places that suffer from treatable diseases, malnutrition, impure water, etc. As I dove into these subjects I realized I (as a Californian, suburban dwelling 21 year old) have no idea how to help those people, especially when it comes to agricultural solutions. So that sparked even greater interest on a practical level.

But none of those things brought me to a place of action. It was while reading "The Road to Peace" by Henri Nouwen, that I became fascinated by "Life". His description of Life as opposed to death was incredibly powerful for me when he started to use plant and human life as an example, and not just spiritual jargon to define life. I began to realize that there was a huge part of life that I had never really been exposed to. And I had little understanding on what true life was in the kingdom of God because I had only been surrounded by man made (dead) things, which I had learned to praise, and look up to as what life was.

There is so much I would love do dive into in this post, but I'll let it spill out as this blog goes on. The most recent book that has launched me into action was Guerrilla Gardening, which is about gardening in places without permission. I hope to catalog my adventures with that on here as well.