Community Garden

Hunter Elementary, just a half mile from my house, has agreed to let me and a group of volunteers from the Vintage21 Church start a community garden on school property. The surrounding neighborhood is one that was recently hit by the tornado on April 16 and was already one of the poorest areas of the city. At the school, 290 students qualify for free lunch, and 75 students are experiencing homelessness.

Speaking to one of the the school's administrators, I wasn't sure exactly what the desire of the school would be - a teaching tool, something just for the kids, etc, but she was very intent that the surrounding community have access to the garden and that mentors have a space to work with the kids. The school has a lovely courtyard with a couple raised beds and a greenhouse purchased by the PTA, but the courtyard is closed off to the public. This led to the selection of the future garden to be at the front left of the school where there is an open grassy area with plenty sunshine.

Before I let you think for a second I am undergoing a noble task, know that I love to garden and selfishly am excited about having another avenue to spend time doing something I enjoy. The past three years, I've mainly spent my time in my own house and yard, and it just felt like it was time to get out and serve. I tossed around different ways I could volunteer with the church, but nothing really clicked. After I dove into the world of garden blogging with Love Sown, the idea of a community garden started tugging at my sleeve. 

The night after I pitched the idea of doing a school/community garden on our church's social media site, I had trouble sleeping, fearing what I was getting myself into and wishing I could take it all back. I simply prayed that God would open and close the right doors and then tried to push the idea out of my head. Of course, I started getting responses from people who were really excited to get involved in the project. Still I tried to keep it at bay thinking maybe this could be started in the fall. Two weeks later I got word that Hunter Elementary wanted us and that Logan's along with their Plant a Row for the Hungry program would donate all the plants we need - when could I meet? Since then, several friends have offered to help with procuring the other supplies we need.

I'm a little nervous that after all the work and excitement this coming week, the plants will all wither and die... or worse, they will look gorgeous and produce no fruit. Dead plants can be replaced, but barren plants just taunt a gardener.

I wasn't going to go the spiritual route with this post and even with how I talk about this project because I don't claim to be divinely inspired. I just know that I like gardening and starting new projects, and the thought of kids going hungry makes me want to get off my butt. My heart may not be in this for all the right reasons, but when I see God at work, I shouldn't deny it. He has opened the doors for this despite my reluctant heart. I believe that God goes before us, with us and after us, and sometimes He goes in spite of us. Six years ago, I didn't really even garden. I think I might have just planted my first squash plant ever. Twelve years before that as a high school senior, I didn't want to visit NC State because it was "an ag school" and I wasn't into that. What did I know back then? Not  much. What do I know now? Still not much.

Yes, I am excited. This feels like a step in the right direction.

All this earth
Could all that is lost ever be found
Could a garden come up from this ground at all
You make beautiful things
You make beautiful things out of the dust
You make beautiful things
You make beautiful things out of us
-Gungor

Another morning in the garden

Newly planted purple basil

checking the drip bucket under the spigot

Fuel efficient vehicle

Climbing legs. Seriously, who is this baby?

Compost pail

Mama Robin gathering materials for her nest.

A little self-admiration

Dwarf Irises in bloom

FYI

I had two babies and got too fat to wear my wedding and engagement rings. I'm back to wearing my "saving it for marriage" ring with the fish on it, but on my ring finger instead of the middle finger. Guess I'm not fooling anyone. I'm going to go eat an apple strudel while I feel sorry for myself.

I thought Tornadoes were for Kansas?

Saturday a huge tornado swept through Downtown Raleigh and South East Raleigh. While our friends were hiding in closets and basements, we stupidly were standing at our windows amazed by the blowing trees and looking for cues that it was time to hide. Our neighborhood was missed by about five blocks. Power went out almost immediately and came back on in the middle of the night the next evening. Daniel had only one thing on his mind: light. Can we light the fires? Where is your flashlight? Can I hold it? Where is Daddy's flashlight? Can I hold it? Do you want to trade flashlights? I thought he'd be excited to have the lights back on this morning.

Me: Good morning!
Daniel: Good morning!
Me: Did you know the power is back on?
Daniel: (looking around) Oh, that's so awesome! Where is your flashlight?

On Saturday we tried to get over to King Charles with a chainsaw, and every road in was blocked. We couldn't drive more than a block in any direction without having to turn around. Families were standing in front of their houses staring in disbelief at the piles and piles of branches and rubble. We could have walked in, but it wouldn't be safe with the boys with us. Eventually we accepted that we couldn't get in and were only adding to the chaos, so we headed home.

As we talked to friends from church over Twitter and text, we didn't hear of much damage to their homes, but many of the surrounding houses were devastated. Joe went out after church to help clean up a neighborhood just northeast of us and I drove through downtown to look at the massive trees that had fallen. The tornado somehow managed to only hit the poorest neighborhoods of the city. Driving down Jones, there were some fallen limbs in the wealthy section, and almost right as it transitioned into a poorer neighborhood, power lines and trees were down.

The same was true of downtown. As soon as we entered the residential areas of E. Hargett and Martin, it was like entered a war zone.

I don't think this tornado had any sort of socioeconomic agenda, but those families affected will have difficult time recovering. While this is devastating, it is providing amazing and beautiful opportunities for people to serve their community. There were at least 100 people from our church out cleaning yards yesterday and meeting the neighbors of friends they wouldn't normally get a chance to speak to. Many of these folks from church have intentionally moved into impoverished areas with the hopes of being able to love those who often get overlooked.

Grammar Lessons from a 3 Year Old

Daniel: Mom, turn on Thomas.

Me: I will not.

Daniel: You will are.

Spring Fling giveaways are next week!

Love Sown is throwing a party for you and itself, but mainly for you - to thank you for following this new blog and giving it so much love. Starting Monday, a new giveaway will posted each day to help get you in the mood for spring and all the yummy things the garden will bring, as if you weren't already.

Look for these wonderful giveaways next week:

A $20 gift certificate to Renee's Garden

KidCo's BabySteps Deluxe Food Mill with Travel Tote

A 1-year subscription to Organic Gardening Magazine

A copy of the book, Roots, Shoots, Buckets, & Boots: Gardening Together with Children by Sharon Lovejoy

... and more to come! One will be posted each day and the winner will be selected and announced the following week.

If you would like to participate in this fun little Spring Fling by donating something for a giveaway, please contact me at info@lovesown.com.

Oh-My-BLOGness (More Bloggin' Besties!)

It seems like every week more friends are starting blogs. Here are more real-life friends on the real-live internet!

{Love} She Spoke
hi! my name is jenn - let's have coffee and chat about such & such.

our modern family
thoughts and updates on our journey towards adoption

EAST OF TOWN
so, yeah. this is a long time coming. keep your hands and feet inside the ride at all times… this is gonna be fun

Coffee and Family
First of all, I'm not a blogger. But I have so many ideas in my head these days I thought it was time to share them with the world. My heart is huge, but things don't always come across the way I want them to.


If you have a new blog and I've missed that fact, drop a comment and I'll plug you in the next Oh-My-BLOGness.

Pondering Beekeeping

J.C. Raulston Arboretum's Hive

I have several friends that keep bees. My dad kept up three hives for several years. I'm just pondering it at this point and wondering if a 1/3 acer lot is big enough and if a baby and preschooler (and allergic husband) would be safe.

Where is Rosie?

When I was in second grade, my social studies teacher, Mrs. Luellen, had us read an article about how in the year 2010 we would all have robot maids cleaning our houses and doing our chores. I think the author had been overly inspired by the Jetsons because 2010 has come and gone and I am still doing my own laundry.

The point at which you have too many clothes or too many people in the family is the point at which it takes a whole two day to do the laundry. Of course it didn't help that Matthew likes crawling into the baskets of folded clothes to toss over shirts and pants, and it doesn't help that Daniel likes to dance on the piles either.

Daniel spent an entire hour taking all of his clothes from a pile, putting it into a basket, putting them into the dryer, and taking them back out again. He and Matthew stood at the dryer banging on the door and flipping the light off and on. Too bad I can't redirect this energy into helping me sort and fold! Then I would have something even better than a Rosie... squeezable, funny robot boys!

Too much waiting, not enough living.

Sometimes you have to stop looking for permission from everyone else to pursue your passions. If you wait for divine inspiration, you may spend your whole life waiting.

When I started grad school, I read an article talking about the fear of starting. Some students dove right in, making corrections and alterations to the plan as they went, some stood at the edge of the pool assessing every ripple in the water before jumping in.

Guess which I was.

If you guessed I was the one frozen at the side, you were right. I waited so long and planned something so big that I had to change form a Masters degree to a Ph.D. As a kid, I was the same way. While the other kids would try a new game with the parachute, I'm told I would stand off to the side watching until I was certain that I could do it to satisfaction. I had to be given permission to smile (hence "Pocket Smiles") at the beginning of the school day.

This is totally inconsistent from my daily rhythm. We fly by the seat of our pants, going to the park on a whim, texting friends last minute to attempt a get together. Yet these are no more than hour long commitments at most. When it comes to committing to bigger things, I freeze.

That was I froze until I read this post by Austin Kleon that my friend Christian shared on Twitter. The words that prodded me the most:

If I waited to know “who I was” or “what I was about” before I started “being creative”, well, I’d still be sitting around trying to figure myself out instead of making things. In my experience, it’s in the act of making things that we figure out who we are.

Personally, I think so much time is wasted in our young adulthood deciding what we will one day be instead of just getting out there and living. Followers of Jesus can be especially guilty of this, when the Bible already has made it quite clear what we are made to do while on Earth - make much of Jesus.

According to the Westminster Shorter Catechism and my brother's highschool's motto, "Man's chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever." Enjoy God. What a foreign concept that seems to be. So what do we make of these hobbies and passions and talents? Use them to glorify God and enjoy him. Of course, you could always sit around with a stack of career, personality, and spiritual gifts tests and survey all your friends on a monthly basis to see whether they feel your life is headed in the right direction...

I also liked his take on "fake it 'till you make it." For me, this translated to instead of waiting until I have enough experience to qualify me to write on gardening and upcycling projects, for instance, go ahead and write about it. No, I don't have tats, piercings and funky-rimmed glasses to pass as a hip urban gardner, and I don't yet have gray hair and built in elbow rests on my hips to qualify me as a sweet old lady gardener, but I do have my own stories to tell. I certainly have enough experiential wisdom by now to tell people how not to garden.

Here's the thing - life is way too short to waste any minute of it, and it is far too long to sit around doing nothing, waiting on some mystical door to open. Our lives are the culmination of our daily choices as well the big direction-altering ones. If we allow ourselves to be immobilized by the latter, then there's a lot of living we are missing out on.

Not-quite-desperate Plea

Back in February I launched a new website Love Sown (Garden Grown). I've really enjoyed having an outlet for all the fun the boys and I are having as we develop a new garden at our house. I've featured easy projects, tips on involving the pre-schooler in the work, and pictures of the discoveries we make.

My long-term goal for Love Sown is to continue what I've been doing but also incorporate guest posters with project ideas, garden fresh recipes, growing advice, and their own stories of gardening successes and mishaps. I'd also like to feature books and eco and family friendly products and brands that work well for us. Hopefully one day I'll have enough fodder for a book of my own.

Starting April 18, I hope to throw a spring fling with a daily giveaway to bring awareness to the awesomeness of family gardening and green living, the products, and to help rev up readers for the growing season ahead. What I need help with from you is in followers so that I can attract great giveaways and great guest posters. Love Sown is just a tiny sprout of a blog and has a lot of growing to do. I'd be ever so grateful for comments, followers, and fans. Come water my blog and bring a little sunshine!

Oh-My-BLOGness

I thought blogging was already mainstream, but now it seems just about everyone I know has a blog, even my brother-in-law who has yet to join Facebook or Twitter. In particular, my real life community of friends and my virtual community are colliding. I'm not complaining. I love to get the chance to read my buddies' lives on the flat screen.

If blogs could throw cocktail welcome parties, let this be considered mine. Some of these friends have been around awhile now, but why not still give them a HALOOOO!

http://ourbeautifulcollision.com/
a family by birth, foster care and adoption

http://goodnessseenbykathy.blogspot.com/
just had a thought one morning as I was sipping coffee to write a blog of things God lays on my heart in passing,thoughts, prayers, and how God answers in order to testify to God's goodness. hmmm....

http://cindy-somethingbeautiful.blogspot.com/
Our journey through adoption

http://emand.tumblr.com/
[hap]hazard[ous] materials.

http://magicfalcon.com/
A heartfelt blog about friendships that stand the test of time.

If a couple of my other friends ever get around to naming theirs, they shall soon be thrown a party as well. You'll see a pretty common theme of adoption and orphan care on these blogs (with the exception of Magic Falcon). That's because many of them are or have started the adoption process or are supporting orphans and adoptive families and are working with Reclaim | Orphans, an organization that had its official launch last weekend and is focused on "a holistic approach to orphan care and adoption."

10 Weeks of Vegetable Gardening: Week 10

Each Friday I am posting a weekly guide for prepping your home vegetable garden. In Raleigh, the last killing frost date is April 11 (on average, give or take a week), so my first weekend for planting (summer crops) outdoors is April 9.


It's April! It's April! One week to go before outdoor planting. 


Check the weather and make sure there is no frost predicted, and if not, begin to harden off your plants. Because mine are in a cold frame (or a hot box - mini green house), hardening off involves leaving the cover open during the day and closed at night for several nights before planting. If your seedlings are indoors, set them outdoors during the day in an area that gets filtered light so that the leaves don't get burned by the sun. Bring them in at night for several days so they don't get shocked by the cooler temperatures.


Something I have not yet done but will do this weekend is mulch the garden beds. You will save yourself much time weeding if you mulch. The best part about mulching is water conservation. Mulch helps prevent evaporation from the soil surface. Because it slows weed growth, you don't have extra roots competing for the soil's water either. Last year I did two patches of okra, and one was mulched and the other wasn't. The patch that wasn't mulched grew infested with wire grass and wilted every day as sun heated it up, the other didn't wilt. While it still had a little trouble with the wire grass, it was easier to pull up from the mulch than the soil. 


When possible, mulch before planting so you don't have to work around delicate sprouts and plants. Check your local garden center for their various options - organic, marked for veggie gardens, etc. "Choosing the Right Mulch" from Gardener's Supply Company is a helpful resource for creative and practical solutions.