As you all should know now, my trip to Haiti has been postponed indefinitely due to crazy conditions on all fronts down there. I am so torn apart by the fact that Haiti just can't seem to get a break this passed year. Sometimes there doesn't really seem like there is much hope for Haiti, but don't forget the Christmas that we just celebrated. As we celebrated the day that He was born to die, He was born to heal, He was born to bring order to the chaos brought on by the everyday flaws of our broken world...may we remember that in Christ there is hope, life, and order.
The main news with me though is the beginning of a community garden in my back yard! The current members are myself, Hannah, Jordan, and Nicole. I need some guys, right?!! Here's the dealio with the garden...we are cultivating an area about 50' x 50' to produce all of our veggies and hopefully some fruits for this entire year! Okay...that sounds scary. I can't talk like that otherwise I will scare myself out of doing this. We are growing over 50 different varieties of vegetables and about 30 different veggies. It will be a lot of work, but all of us are very excited to put in the time to get closer to God's creation and the food that we eat.
Here's my garden plan!!
Last night we started our first seeds! We seeded 216 onions (part red and part yellow), 24 broccoli, 24 cauliflower, 12 kale, and 12 celery plants. We were going to seed leeks, but somebody (me) forgot to order the seeds...oops.
Let me tell you a little bit about why we start our seeds indoors.
1) Baby plants are just like human babies...well maybe not just like them, but they have some similarities...they need to be taken care of just right in order to have healthy adult lives. Some people say that the first 25ish years of a person's life is when we need to make sure we eat right and organically so we don't get cancers and diabetes later. I believe this is true...it just makes sense. Indoors, I can monitor our plant babies temperature, moisture level, wind level, etc. so they will have a healthy start and produce a lot of healthy veggies for us to eat.
2) Headstart on weeds. Sadly, weeds grow quickly stealing nutrients, sunlight, and space from seedling, but if you start your plants inside they get a headstart on the weeds. If I plant a broccoli seed into freshly tilled soil, it will germinate at about the same time as the weeds around it, and I will have to weed more often to give my baby broccoli the light, nutrients, and space it requires. BUT if I plant a 4 inch broccoli baby, it will be 4 inches tall when the weed seed pops up. This makes it not quite as difficult to weed, and gives the baby broccoli a better chance for survival.
3) Headstart on weather. People say that here in Greenville, you should put your summer veggies, like tomatoes, at the end of April. Now, I can either put plant seeds outside at the end of April or start seeds inside 6 weeks prior so that I can put an adolescent plant out at the end of April. Basically, I can get tomatoes 6 weeks earlier by starting my babies indoors.
4) Save field space. Not every seed germinates. Average germination rate for my onion seed is low, at about 75%. So if I seed 100 seeds outside only about 75 of them will produce onions. This means that the space that I was giving the other 25 seeds will be wasted for the whole season! By putting out transplants, I can choose only the best of the best plants, so that I have the best chance of getting good production.
Here is our propagation area. See our awesome lights?
That is all for now. Please let me know if you have any questions about the garden like what varieties we are planting or our soil mix recipe!
Oh yes and the name "the great grungy garden" was coined by Miss Hannah Gayle Tassie...apparently "grungy" is used not as a descriptor for the garden, but purely for alliteration purposes.
grace and peace
Noah
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