Written by
Susan Reinhardt
Columnist

Twelve years ago Laurl Abel decided to change the way she ate.

Little by little, her diet became healthier, and today she’s a vegetarian who loves fresh, organically grown fruits and vegetables.

Laurl said many people who are “poor,” like herself, can’t afford to frequent high-end grocery stores offering organic produce with price tags higher than a cable bill.

“It’s too expensive to shop commercially, but for health eating fresh vegetables and fruits is essential,” this 33-year-old, single working mother of two said.

She discovered a solution. One that anybody on a budget and wanting a healthier lifestyle can achieve.

Her 8-year-old daughter began volunteering at Fairview’s welcome table, where on Thursdays during lunch, people can get a great meal at the Fairview Christian Fellowship Church.

This is how Laurl learned about The Lord’s Acre, a farm in Fairview dedicated to providing those in need with literally tons of fresh produce, items they wouldn’t get at some charitable food pantries, where the groceries are often prepackaged, boxed or canned.

According to studies, nearly 30 percent of children younger than 18 are “food insecure” at some point during each year in Western North Carolina, meaning they don’t know where their next meal is coming from. To me, that’s outrageous.

Pat Stone, editor of GreenPrints in Fairview and chairman of The Lord’s Acre board, said the idea for a community farm arose three years ago, when a group of people decided to stop talking about hunger and do something about it.

“It was a simple idea that has grown faster than zucchini in July,” he said.

During the three years since The Lord’s Acre first tucked a seedling in the soil, hundreds have volunteered and more than 17 tons of organic food has been grown and given away, much of it to the Food for Fairview, serving those who might otherwise go hungry.

“Everything from peas to watermelons has been given,” Stone said. What’s left goes to other agencies around town, including the Veteran’s Restoration Center.
“These groups are finally able to give their clients healthful food that doesn’t come out of a can or a box,” he said.

In the past year, one of every six Western North Carolina residents reportedly received food assistance. More than 15 percent had times when they didn’t know when their next meal would arrive.

Teaching as well as feeding folks

While The Lord’s Acre provides a bountiful garden of foods, it also inspires and teaches people to plant their own gardens as a way to eat well without spending a fortune.

Anyone can come and learn. Many church and school groups spend time tending the garden, located on several acres of fertile Fairview soil the nonprofit leases.

The real surprise, though, is that most of the food is grown from a half-acre of land, that one area bringing in the 17 tons of produce during the past three seasons.

The Lord’s Acre is a community hub that connects volunteers working to grow organic food for those in need and offers gardening and food-skills training to all ages.

“People who work here are impressed as much by the community as by the garden,” said Susan Sides, executive director and garden manager. “People here get to know and help each other as well as grow food.”

Franklin Sides, Susan’s husband and also co-manager of The Lord’s Acre, said plans are in place to expand.

“We want to get into growing more fruits and berries,” he said. Sides is also Gerton’s postmaster, but puts in 20 hours a week at the garden. “Some people are more likely to eat berries than a carrot.”

Just last year, The Lord’s Acre yielded eight tons of vegetables and fed 75 families in Fairview. Another 80 to 100 people show up weekly at the Welcome Table, a dining experience based on donations, no matter how small.

“They use white tablecloths, real plates and have a really good salad bar (most items from The Lord’s Acre),” Sides said.

Growing more healthful meals

Laurl Abel is one of four families who will have a plot in the garden this year.

She calls herself “poor and struggling” but has created a unique plan in which she can work, home-school her children and attend nursing school.

She decided to team up with her best friend, another single mom, and together they share the parenting and household management, along with expenses.

“At least one of us is home during the day instead of paying for daycare,” she said. “It works out pretty well.”

It’s important to Laurl and her roommate, Jessica Criste, also a mother, to feed their children healthful meals.

“We didn’t want our kids growing up not knowing what a tomato tasted like,” Laurl said. “We really believe in feeding our kids vegetables instead of fast foods and processed stuff.”

In exchange for Laurl and Jessica’s spot in the garden, they also volunteer working the main garden. In exchange, they receive the nutritious bounties of the harvest.

“You can feed your kids’ bellies with a $3 box of Cheerios or fill their bellies with vegetables,” Laurl said. “It can be done. You can grow food for pennies of what it costs in the grocery store.”

Eating from the earth has improved Laurl’s health. A former sufferer of allergies, migraines and “feeling horrible all the time,” she now says her health and energy levels are excellent.

She recommends those just learning about gardening to start off with baskets of soil and seed.

“Start your own little garden,” she said. “Anyone can do it. Go to Goodwill and get huge baskets and fill them with soil then put them on the porch. Start small and grow into it. Involve the kids, too.”

‘It’s picture perfect’

For Pat Stone, the biggest surprise about starting the garden is how fast and how many people have pitched in.

“I think all of us want to help, we just don’t know where to start,” he said. “The Lord’s Acre lets everyone help each other. This garden is as much a blessing for those of us who work here as it ever is for those who receive its produce.”

Nedra Wilson, a volunteer, said she’s inspired by how the Sides’ can grow more vegetables per square foot than most people.

“It’s filling a basic need,” Wilson said. “It’s picture perfect and just incredible.”

The next step for The Lord’s Acre is a campaign to raise $275,000 to buy the land they are leasing.

When the land is bought, including a generous land donation upon full payment, The Lord’s Acre will have 5 1/2 acres on which to expand and provide more families with its bountiful offerings.

Susan and Franklin Sides said the entire concept is about providing food, education and community bonds.

Gourmet Desserts and Showstopping Numbers from ‘Carousel’ performed by students from Reynolds High School and ‘How To Succeed in Business Without Really Trying’ performed by students from Veritas Christian Academy.

Saturday, March 17, 7:00 pm

Fairview Christian Fellowship

Admission:$20.00 Individual, $10.00 Student, Children under 12 Free

A Fundraiser for The Lord’s Acre, Fairview’s Garden for Hunger

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!

[Show as slideshow]

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!