It's garden season! I just love it. It's still early for most of the US, so you're not too late to get started. I'll give a few recommendations. If you're a city dweller, no need to raise any livestock feed, but the "people feed" is so much better from the garden!
If space is limited, I recommend Kale, a tomato plant, and a pepper plant. Those three veggies are loaded with vitamins and produce well in square foot gardening. These will literally grow like house plants, with the tomato and pepper needing plenty of sunlight. If a backyard garden is an option, by all means do it! You won't regret it. Craigslist is a great place to find someone who will till a small garden spot very reasonably, so there's no need for a major outlay of cash in the beginning.
It is time to get growing!
Just in case you're not encouraged by my enthusiasm, I've included a link including negative reinforcement.
http://www.pakalertpress.com/2014/02/18/15-reasons-why-your-food-bill-is-going-to-start-soaring/
Sunday, February 23, 2014
Sunday, February 16, 2014
If YHWH Wills . . .
Tomorrow, I have a date planned! With my Creator, a rototiller, and several seeds.
It's literally taken every ounce of discipline I have and the power of YHWH for me to stay indoors and get the journalism done. Planting season has arrived. Today has been exquisite!
This photo was taken after 5pm!
Tomorrow, I pray, I'm in the garden.
It's literally taken every ounce of discipline I have and the power of YHWH for me to stay indoors and get the journalism done. Planting season has arrived. Today has been exquisite!
This photo was taken after 5pm!
Tomorrow, I pray, I'm in the garden.
Sunday, February 9, 2014
School Lunches
After reporting about the recent unreasonable way "shortfalls" in school lunch accounts were handled, I decided to do something besides report about it. My comments were completely biased and editorialized . . .but these are children. My heart was just so heavy for those children who had been humiliated, then returned to class to finish their day hungry. Reporting the incident, simply was not enough.
Scripture tells us we are to help the widows and fatherless, and the poor. I have no idea how many school children live in single parent homes, but I do know there are many Americans struggling to provide for their families, and they are working! So, I called the local school to see what could be done to avoid such a ridiculous solution as was perpetrated in Salt Lake City.
It was so easy! I can actually give them money specifically earmarked to cushion the school lunch program in the event of an outstanding balance. It can be a one time donation, or I can do it regularly. Some area churches also have food pantries that are willing to use donations as they are earmarked.
Between school lunch programs and food pantries, fulfilling Scripture to feed the hungry has really never been easier! A word of caution, though. There are some USDA issues with the donation of home grown and home preserved products, but fresh produce is acceptable. Meanwhile, many schools are open and willing to work with people trying to help.
Scripture tells us we are to help the widows and fatherless, and the poor. I have no idea how many school children live in single parent homes, but I do know there are many Americans struggling to provide for their families, and they are working! So, I called the local school to see what could be done to avoid such a ridiculous solution as was perpetrated in Salt Lake City.
It was so easy! I can actually give them money specifically earmarked to cushion the school lunch program in the event of an outstanding balance. It can be a one time donation, or I can do it regularly. Some area churches also have food pantries that are willing to use donations as they are earmarked.
Between school lunch programs and food pantries, fulfilling Scripture to feed the hungry has really never been easier! A word of caution, though. There are some USDA issues with the donation of home grown and home preserved products, but fresh produce is acceptable. Meanwhile, many schools are open and willing to work with people trying to help.
Sunday, February 2, 2014
Spring is Nearly Here
As I look out my office window, I am reminded that it is indeed, still winter. That's fine, we need everything in it's season, but spring is on the way. We've reached the half-way point for winter. In growing zone 7, rumor has it we can have lettuce, peas, and radishes in the ground in two weeks. If there is another snow, well, we shall see, but since relocating and going natural, I've spent every birthday in the garden. I'll use the Gregorian date, just for ease of recognition, although my birthday on the Hebrew calendar is actually mentioned in the book of Esther, but . . . I digress.
Regardless of what the middle of February holds in the way of weather, I've been working in the garden, every March 5, since 2006. I messed up on the last Shemitah, and thankfully, I've been forgiven. Perhaps that's why I'm sounding the warning so strongly for this one. The long debate and discussion of dates in the TO, HRM, Messianic community did not begin with Facebook. There are those who have figured it from the arrival into the Promised Land, those who figure it from Israel's re-establishment, and those who figure it from their own beginnings at Homesteading.
Fortunately, I have taken the opportunity to turn off the social debates and sit down and do the math. I figure Shemitah from the children of Israel's arrival in the Promised Land. When I arrived at that, I was then ready to apply that to my gardening, as well. As it turns out, I learned this just in time to coordinate it with this homestead. The first small one, as I mentioned was a place of learning and adapting. Once I had the year figured, the next thing I heard, was "It's time to move!" Sure enough, this is my sixth year in this place. I am so thankful our Heavenly Father makes things easy and preserves the simple!
This is the time the nurseries begin to stock bedding plants and even the Dollar General sells seed packets. Don't let this year's garden season pass you by, even if it's only a 1 square foot garden.
Regardless of what the middle of February holds in the way of weather, I've been working in the garden, every March 5, since 2006. I messed up on the last Shemitah, and thankfully, I've been forgiven. Perhaps that's why I'm sounding the warning so strongly for this one. The long debate and discussion of dates in the TO, HRM, Messianic community did not begin with Facebook. There are those who have figured it from the arrival into the Promised Land, those who figure it from Israel's re-establishment, and those who figure it from their own beginnings at Homesteading.
Fortunately, I have taken the opportunity to turn off the social debates and sit down and do the math. I figure Shemitah from the children of Israel's arrival in the Promised Land. When I arrived at that, I was then ready to apply that to my gardening, as well. As it turns out, I learned this just in time to coordinate it with this homestead. The first small one, as I mentioned was a place of learning and adapting. Once I had the year figured, the next thing I heard, was "It's time to move!" Sure enough, this is my sixth year in this place. I am so thankful our Heavenly Father makes things easy and preserves the simple!
This is the time the nurseries begin to stock bedding plants and even the Dollar General sells seed packets. Don't let this year's garden season pass you by, even if it's only a 1 square foot garden.
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