Weekly Weed'n'Work

We've settled into weekly work sessions for weeding, planting, feeding, putting up supports, harvesting, tasting, visiting, celebrating and observing. The hardest part? The changing peoplescape. Voices for Youth is a transitional living facility and clients move on too quickly for my liking! But each person is gift, whether with our group for the season or for just a day.
We've tried to use existing materials where possible, e.g. lumber scraps from somebody's garage rather than buying plastic covered rebar for supporting beans. This requires more thought (tweaking) and more labor (installation) but is living stewardship.

Growing Season Garden Blessing

In June we gathered for our growing season blessing. After a tour of the garden and patio plants and a devotional, Pastor Dave Van Kley offered a blessing prayer for our garden's (and gardeners'!) growth. Thanks to all the people who helped us celebrate -- your joy added lots! What to serve when our main harvest so far had been stones? Canapés of bread, cream cheese, garden-grown chives and other herbs, topped with colorful, sulfur-rich nasturtium blossoms from our window box. (One client admitted later, when the blossom fell off her hors d'oeuvre, she was relieved!) Also we had rhubarb pie made with rhubarb from someone else's garden. Below Becky Soderna, LSS URban Minstiry program supervisor displays our very first radish.

Celebration Salad!

Wow! Our garden had enough produce for a fab Celebration Salad at our bi-weekly book (Simply in Season) session. Primo! Cool, quenching cucumbers (2 sizes); baby carrots (taste had a hint of flower essence!); sweet baby beet and rich beet greens; the pizazz of fresh sage; broccoli the color of a blue spruce; rich tomatoes; petite Swiss chard; tangy banana peppers; plump sugar peas; moist wax beans; aromatic cilantro and snappy chives. Instead of lettuce, our primary greens were fresh, living carrot tops. Non-garden adders: avocado, cashews, vinegar, spices, olive oil, as well as radishes from a local farm since we just planted our second crop. Visiting as we all pitched in with the preparation was great. We noted that a feast is not just a large quantity of food, but sharing with others! We continued munching as we discussed money related to the purchase of food and justice to farmers, including how farmers bring their wares to market in other countries. After discussing various types of costs, we talked about various types of wealth and how those are related to our food choices: strong relationships, clear conscience, wealth of time to prepare good food and share it with others.

Hoe-de-hoe-de-hoe!

Newcomer Andre, shown here feeding plants, comes to us with extensive gardening experience (and wonderful gardening stories). Big thanks to him for watering the garden this week. An even bigger thanks for... hoeing! Geesh! When we gathered for our weekly work session, this was the first week during the whole project we didn't have to weed because this guy really knows how to use a hoe! Glad to have you on the team!

The Details

The details of gardening... victory over a weed,


pinching off cilantro blossoms.




Sarah tutors visitors Cierra and Aurora (from Iowa) about the finer points of gardening.

God Gifts

The Lord will open the heav- ens,





the storehouse of his bounty, to send rain on your land in season and to bless all the work of your hands. Deuteronomy 28:12

Blue Skies Smilin' at Me...

Blue skies and sunshine have been part of our great UP summer, but the garden was getting pretty dry, so visitors Jason (all the way from Texas) and Jim carefully watered roots before feeding leaves with organic food.