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.

This Says It All!

Look at Cassie's satisfaction and appreciation from picking this fresh tomato!

This brings to mind a true love song, the tender ballad below.

Homegrown Tomatoes by Guy Clark

Chorus:

Homegrown tomatoes, homegrown tomatoes

What'd life be without homegrown tomatoes

Only two things that money can't buy

That's true love and homegrown tomatoes

1. Well, there ain't nothin' in the world that I like better

Than bacon, lettuce and home grown tomatoes

Up in the morning and out in the garden

Pick you a ripe one. Hey, don't get a hard 'un.

Plant 'em in the spring, eat 'em ion the summer.

All winter without 'em's a culinary bummer.

I forget all about the sweatin' and the diggin'

Every time I go out and pick me a big'un.

CHORUS

2. You can go out and eat 'em, that's for sure,

There's nothin' a home grown tomato won't cure.

Put 'em in a salad, put 'em in a stew.

You can make your own tomato juice.

You can eat 'em with eggs, you can eat 'em with gravy.

Eat with 'em with bean, pinto or navy.

Put 'em on the side, put 'em in the middle.

Put a homegrown tomato on a hot cake griddle.

CHORUS

3. If I could change this life I lead,

I'd be Johnny Tomato Seed.

'Cause I know what this country needs,

It's homegrown tomatoes in every yard, you see.

When I die, don't bury me

In a box in a cemetery.

Out in the garden would be much better,

Where I could be pushin' up those homegrown tomatoes.

CHORUS

Listen to it at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nitgmAInI18

A Berry Good Summer!

Thimbleberries: another wild UP treat. More difficult to pick than wild blueberries. Gisele showed college students a local patch; they generously shared some of their pickings with Voices for Youth clients. One college student used his in a peach thimbleberry pie. Blessed!

Results!

We were beginning to wonder. Is anything really growing here besides weeds (and rocks and broken glass)? Week after week of work with very little obvious response -- discouraging. And then -- bam! Results! Ripening tomatoes, beans that miraculously went from blossom to long bean in one week, peppers getting bigger. Sigh of relief... our work has not been in vain. Excitement is in the air as growth becomes apparent! Not unlike the growth of human hearts. Thanks for all those who keep coming patiently and faithfully!

We've Got the Blues

Here in the gorgeous Upper Peninsula (UP) of Michigan "we got the blues"... wild blueberries. E-ver-y-where!! What a great year for these little gems! Gisele showed college students (and friends) who are part of the Marquette Hunger Garden project a couple of prime picking spots.

We picked wild blueberries and donated some of them to Voices for Youth -- feeding both hungry, grateful teens and the hungry college students who picked the really fresh and healthy fruit.

This experience wasn't just about food for our bellies, but also being fed by the fresh air and gentle light as we literally got "down to earth" with multiple varieties of low bush blueberry plants.

Meaning of Food in Our Lives

Every other week we've been meeting to discuss the book "Simply in Season" at Voices for Youth. The resource is a cookbook that includes reflections, Bible references, factoids, and anecdotes about the meaning and place of food in our lives. It raises our awareness of the people and steps involved in growing, processing, and delivering our food to us. We've discussed hunger -- both undernourishment and overnourishment. We've thought out loud about sustainability and impacts of consuming locally produced foods, as well as consuming seasonal produce. One of our college students regularly shares with us recipes she has tried from the book.

Here, a couple of Voices for Youth participants get into the nitty gritty details of corn syrup cornucopia. Corn syrup in tomato soup? Wha?! We took a look at which foods have corn syrup -- sometimes more than one kind of corn syrup -- and which don't. See more about "Simply in Season", including a downloadable free study guide, at http://www.worldcommunitycookbook.org/