Growing  food is one of the most politically & socially neutral things a person or a community can do. Not tied to any political party, religion, race, nationality, gender or socio- economic status, with a little help, it is truly an opportunity for the masses. In fact, back in the early 1940s, 20 million households had set up victory gardens, supplying more than 40 percent of the nation’s produce! Yes, the sun photosynthesizes, the rain falls and the microorganisms do their job regardless of who sows the seed. And yet…

Growing food is now one of the most radical things a person or a community can do. By choosing to grow even a small portion of the food we eat, we are choosing to become part of a subversive ‘plot’. Instead of shutting ourselves off indoors, working or amusing ourselves to death, and remaining isolated from the knowledge of how to provide our for ourselves, we can take back some power over our health, our diet, our pocketbooks and our communities by growing even a little of our own food.

As Roger Dorion quips, gardening is also a ‘healthy gateway drug’ into other forms of freedom and knowledge. Once we’ve grown all this gorgeous food, now what do we do with it? This leads us to learn how to prepare and preserve our amazing bounty and to find out who our neighbors are as we give our excess away. Having tasted our own minutes-old veggies, we are hooked and look for local farmers to support and in doing so, learn much about their passion and their struggles. By fertilizing with compost, cover crops and natural amendments we unhook from the excessive use of fossil fuels needed to grow, water and transport our nation’s produce. We learn about seasons and science and hunger and obesity and begin to realize that everyone eats or at least needs to. Growing food is a gift we can share that will never go out of style or become obsolete. By allowing ourselves permission to work and get dirty we heal our bodies, our minds and our souls.

If you love intrigue, there’s plenty of that to be had as well. When we gave up our understanding of food and how to grow it, all hell broke loose. You might find yourself incensed to learn that corporations have patented many seeds so that it is illegal to save seeds from those plants, that our nation’s food supply is now controlled by a handful of corporations that put profit ahead of consumer healthy, that farmers are being squeezed to the point that there are so few of them they do not even show up as an occupation on the national census, and that obesity and diabetes are epidemic in large part due to the profitable change from food to  ‘food products’.

So planting a tomato or even a 3 by 3 foot garden is not only something everyone can do, it is also radical (radical – meaning ‘root’). Growing food slows us down, opens our eyes, our minds, and our hearts. It begins a conversation.

If you’d like to converse while planting carrots, harvesting kale or pulling weeds, come see us this year at The Lord’s Acre. www.thelordsacre.org. We will be offering garden classes and our volunteer times start in March. To receive our weekly email updates of what’s happening when in the garden as well as in and around our area, contact us at thelordsacre@gmail.com and ask to be on our email list.

Thanks guys! The barn looks great!

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The pole beans are flowering and will soon be ready to pick

Interns Sarah, Leah, Taylor and Blake harvest bush beans

Blake and Sarah proudly display their harvest

Chioggia Beets: beautiful and delicious.

On Friday mornings, we harvest food for the local pantry, Food For Fairview. Join us on Friday mornings during the summer. We start harvesting at 7:30. Here, Susan shows off some newly harvested carrots.

Harvests are becoming more diverse as the summer progresses. Scallions, onions, lettuce, potatoes, carrots, and beans are waiting to be loaded up and taken to the food pantry.

Sarah with a full truckload of fresh veggies… Beets, potatoes, carrots, kale, radish and lettuce!

After donating many bushels of lettuce and about have a bushel of radish from this raised bed, it’s time to prep it for the next crop: carrots! Blake begins tilthing while Taylor clears out remaining weeds and lettuce.

Building soil is crucial. The benefits really showed when we prepared this bed and found gorgeous, soft soil that was easy to work… A great improvement from clay and rocks!

Taylor hard at work. Notice the corn… It’s gettin’ big!

We love the garden!

A volunteer named Maya adds some color to our announcement board

Part of the six-week gardening course, Franklin taught a class about compost on an unusually cold Wednesday in May.

For interns, the most education happens on a day-to-day basis. As they spend time in the garden working and observing, learning occurs naturally. Every Thursday throughout the summer, though, Susan is offering an intentional class for all our interns. This allows them a chance to ask questions and really focus on particular gardening topics. The topic of the first class was hand tools.

Susan displays a stirrup/scuffle hoe

Time to put those tools to use!

A big part of gardening involves starting seeds, stepping up plants, and eventually transplanting them into the garden. Susan taught a class for the interns on ‘stepping up’ plants this Wednesday.

Volunteer Leah works on stepping up tomato plants while Susan works with smaller herbs and flowers.

Leah gives a new home to a lucky tomato plant

Interns Rebekah and Blake sift peat moss and composted cow manure to make soil for our potting mix.

Beginnings of basil

Susan transplants delicate parsley plants to give them more room to grow

Hope to see everyone at our fundraiser next Saturday, June 4, at Sherill’s Inn!

Saturday, May 14

We had a great group of high school students from Reynolds on Saturday. They were all sophomores and members of the student council…. and luckily they showed up ready for a challenge! Because we had a great deal of rain on Friday, we weren’t able to do any work directly in the garden. So, we put the students to work on a giant puzzle: beginning the construction of a 10′ x 26′ greenhouse. We made great progress, had fun, and learned a lot in the process. We couldn’t have done it without them.

We’ve experienced quite a few storms this spring. This photo was taken on a wild and windy morning as we harvested spinach for The Welcome Table.

Several newly planted beds are filled with tiny lettuce, radish, beet, and carrot seedlings.

Taylor takes down a cover crop bed of rye, vetch, and crimson clover with a machete.

Franklin prepares our new space for corn. In the foreground, potatoes are coming up!

New potato plant

Interns Taylor and Blake hard at work in the garden.

We would love to see more volunteers in the garden during our work times. Please come on out on Tuesdays from 9:00 to 12:00 or Wednesdays from 6:00 til dark. Hope to see you out there soon!