Thursday, June 25, 2015

mid-june

Crop share: first of the beets with greens, last of the turnips, unidentified but yummy greens, two pickling cucumbers.

Tasks: trellis beans, empty turnip beds for a new crop, weed, mow a clover carpet between blackberries, mow around raised beds, trellis more beans and the eggplants too.

Learning this week:

1. In the office, I sorted out who had paid on the evening of our recent event (Hoedown!) as opposed to registering beforehand. This involved navigating through the database, paying attention to spelling and pronouns. Along with this, I wished there were a gender neutral pronoun to address people on envelopes when their names don't indicate whether they'd prefer Ms. or Mr.

2. It seems as though time passes more quickly, urgently, on the office days than farm days. Not that the work on the farm is less important--not at all. Maybe it comes from

3. These urban farmers talk about a lot of important things. This week particularly charter schools vs. public schools in Philadelphia. What a learning zone for me! Points that surfaced: if we funnel money (private and still some state) into charter schools for some students we still don't fix the public-only kids' education--but public schools have so little room, across the board, for teachers to be innovative, isn't this a good "meantime" idea?--do charter schools allow similar opportunities for students to learn in diverse environments? not as much as public schools--if the parents are engaged in their students' educations wherever they are, why don't they stick it out in the public districts and supplement at home? Among other ideas.

4. You can trellis beans with a net and stakes and some zip ties, instead of string.

5. I don't mind eating a cold or room-temp lunch anymore. This time it was a stir fry (thank you, Aaron), before it was curry, then leftover fish and rice and salsa.

6. Sunshine comes to feel more delicious and impressive after I spend a day among the leaves that truly use it better than I ever have. They're snatching their meals out of the sunbeams and humidity. Holy poo, that's still cool. Never not going to be cool.

7. "To farm" is like the verb of food. I know cooking kind of works for this, too, but hear me out. You're germinating, planting, fertilising, bug-squashing, shading/sunning, irrigating, weeding, weeding again, still weeding, and then you're harvesting and eating. I came home with unexpected goods: broccoli and some lettuce, as well as Cole Robbie. He's my pet kohlrabi, for the time being. He had dinner with us.

- shalom -



Wednesday, June 17, 2015

work and rest aren't opposites; we are meant for both

Today marks just over two weeks that I’ve been getting to know the needs of the Philadelphia community a bit more by learning and teaching about farming. Not just any farming—urban farming. Learning from those growing green things that bring fruit and vege to our tables where more [un]naturally, rubbish and skyscrapers pile up. It is a great team to be part of, Weavers Way Community Programs.

WWCP aims for nutritional education and urban agricultural understanding for kids and their grown-ups in certain areas of Philly. And I get to help in that work this summer, maybe longer. My heart is pretty full!

Some of the things I have started learning so far:

1.     how to transplant watermelon and cantaloupe seedlings
Look! "there are seeds here and they are trying"**




2.     how to keep a database running to keep a network connecting people who give money to people who grow things and minds with it




3.     the importance of assessing and brainstorming and communicating well in a nonprofit






4.   how tough beets are to grow through weeds           5.     how to make organic fertilizers & pesticide
(like the top half, here; the bottom I weeded)
One ingredient.



6.     seasonality and its beauty

7.     the colors of Swiss chard (or, as Kiwis say, Silverbeet) as it grows

8.     the difference of Philly soil from Wheaton soil from Kaikoura soil

9.     how social or antisocial farming can be; it just depends what you do it for

10. the joy of receiving a share of vegetables weekly, knowing that I may have weeded for them and watered them

11. what good thinking and praying can happen when I garden

12. more about the garden/farm/sower/seed/fruiting imagery in the Bible

13. how silly it would be to call any space growing a food-bearing plant insignificant

14. how hard it is to miss a group like my Creation Care Study Program whanau* while I garden as we did in NZ
Joanna's work at the Old Convent - Kaikoura, NZ

15. that proximate justice—that is, getting things to be as wholesome and as right and as peaceful as we are  able—is not a cop out, it might actually be God's grace to us

16. that God was very wise, of course, to show us how we could live out his image by gardening.

Some of these lessons have photographs to accompany them, and some just want to meet your imagination. Do you know how to sucker tomatoes? Look it up, or ask your grandparents, or ask me the next time you see me. I’d love to teach you. Do you know the alternatives to conventional production-farm pesticides and genetic modifications? I know a few and I bet I’ll learn lots more soon. Read up. Do you know where your recycling goes? I’m trying to find out. Do you know where the nearest Community Supported Agriculture farm is to you? or how much a share costs? or what a CSA is? That is worth googling. Seriously. Good for the farmers, good for the food, good for the families.

My hope this summer is to retain 7 lessons from each day of the internship and share them, along with some photos and anecdotes and other blogs interspersed. Will you journey with me? It’s going to be dirty, clean, tasty, bitter, sweaty, refreshing, overwhelming, beautiful, stressful, relaxing, glorious, and boring all at once.

There's room for all of us to learn and love to grow things.
There is room at the table.
There will always be room at the table when we make the room for each other.

shalom


* whanau: this word [fah.noe] is te reo Maori for “family”
** quote from the children's book and then it's spring, a gift to the reading world from Julie Fogliano and Erin E. Stead.

nota bene: look to this link for more info about WWCP and what we’re up to.