Just go for it.

We have carrots!  Okay...I have to be honest.  I had given up on these little guys.  I wasn't seeing any real progress the last couple of weeks.  Now, I read articles and watched videos on growing carrots and every one of them stressed the need to "thin out" the carrots.  I get the idea and understand the importance on removing weaker plants to give room for the stronger plants to grow.  I guess I became emotionally attached to each seed as I planted it and can't bear the thought of it not realizing it's potential to be a carrot.  But today, with the help and support of one of my gardening friends, I just went for it.  I dug in there and started pulling out the little stalks and left as many big stalks as I could.  I guess in a couple of weeks we'll see if I made the right decisions.  What a lesson in life...how do you know if you are making the right decisions?  We can read all of the books and watch great videos but really when it comes down to it we all need common sense and a loving friend to tell you to just go for it.  If I had a New Year's resolution to consider it would be to not spend as much time overthinking things.  I think I'd like a year of just going for it.  Who knows what great things might happen?

BTW...just in case you were wondering about the watermelon...the first frost was not kind to our watermelon vine.  Definitely not a fall plant.

Cabbages, carrots and watermelons? Oh my!

Fall is my favorite time of year at Heritage CDC.  There is a nip in the air, the leaves are changing colors and we get to go on field trips to the Fire Station and the Pumpkin Patch.  This year, we are adding to our fun and learning by having a fall garden.  At the end of September, the DandyLions Kindergarten class worked to empty the compost bin and helped fertilize the soil for our containers.  By the end of our "work day" we had planted 8 cabbages, filled 3 large containers with carrot seeds and found a bazillion worms.  (Remember that worm farm I wanted?  Patience pays off sometimes.)  The Rockin' Robins and Boppin' Bluebirds began taking turns watering the garden and will begin observing and recording the growth of our cabbages and carrots next week.  Fall is my favorite time of year and I'm excited to say this may be the best one yet!

Oh and remember the pumpkin we grew by accident?  Evidently a watermelon seed was dropped in the corner of the garden and now we have a watermelon vine growing like crazy.  Will watermelons grow in the fall?  We're about to find out!

It's time.

"There is a special time for everything. There is a time for everything that happens under heaven. There is a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pick what is planted." Ecclesiastes 3

It's time to say goodbye to the plants we put in the ground this past spring.  What a learning experience the garden has been this summer!  We learned that cucumbers need lots (and lots) of water to grow.  Did you know that cucumbers can grow up anything, even a wall?  We learned that tomatoes do not grow well when watered from above.  Tomato plants like to be watered close to the stem and straight into the soil.  If you don't their leaves will turn blackish brown.  We learned that Ms. Becky doesn't like the smell of cilantro.  We learned that our red bell peppers take weeks to turn from green to red and we are not very patient.  The experience of planting, tending and harvesting the garden this summer has been a wonderful time of discovery for both the children and myself. 

Since the last week of June, we have donated about 75 pounds of cucumbers to the Forest Park Ministry Center.  (That's like 5 of our Rainbow babies combined!)  We've also donated tomatoes, peppers, cilantro and even the itty bitty eggplants to the families that come there for their physical needs to be met.  Meeting their physical needs with food from our garden opens the door for their spiritual needs to be met also.  For me the best part of this process is knowing that our children have a small part in helping people make big changes in their lives.  And we're not finished yet...did you know that carrots grow in the fall?  They do and we're going to give it a try.  Stay tuned.

Trash to Treasure

I look at my garbage so differently these days.  This spring Heritage CDC purchased a compost bin to go with the newly planted Learning Garden.  It only makes sense.  If we were going to provide an opportunity for children to learn to grow vegetables to help other people we also needed to provide an opportunity for children to learn different ways to take care of the earth God has created.  The compost bin is one of those ways.  I have to smile each time a child proudly shows me the banana peel and coffee grounds they’ve brought to school for the compost.  The children may not understand all of the details of what a banana peel and coffee grounds do for the compost.  How it breaks down and becomes a fertilizer for the soil and how it saves space in a land fill but they do know that they are doing something good for the garden and that the vegetables are given to the Forest Park Ministry Center.

Last month I traveled to Managua, Nicaragua with 14 other people from Heritage Baptist Church to partner with the Open Hearts Ministry in the La Chureca community.  La Chureca is Mangua’s garbage dump.  There is a community of about 1200 people who live and work in the dump.  Our mission was to show the love of Jesus through a medical clinic in the neighborhood surrounding La Chureca and to spend time with children that attend school at the Colegio Cristiano La Esperanza (Hope Christian School) which is located in the center of the dump.  Each day we would enter La Chureca and be amazed at the size of the dump, the smell of the dump and the sights of the dump.  Huge black vultures sat on mountain sized garbage dunes and waited for death and decay to make a meal for them.  Men and women scrambled to the trucks that entered the dump so they could get the best “pick” of garbage from the truck.  Children sat in the middle of garbage waiting for their parents to finish picking through the trash to see if something could be recycled for money.  I can’t begin to describe the acrid smells that wafted in each afternoon.  In Matthew 25 Jesus talks about “the least of these” being the people we should be helping.  I realized that I was seeing the least of the least of these. 

I look at my garbage differently these days because I see the faces of so many sweet children and wonder if they are going to look through someone’s trash today as a means of survival.  I also see the sweet faces of the children at Heritage CDC and am reminded that we are doing a good thing by giving them an opportunity to help others with a garden…and garbage.

It's a Pumpkin!

Check list for the garden.  Great spot that receives morning sunlight, check.  Prime location that the children can see the plants grow every day, check.  Convenient access to water faucet and hose, check. 100 hands to help till up the soil, check.
Our garden began as most gardens begin, with careful planning and design.  I drew out where we were going to place the pots.  I spent countless minutes picking out stepping stones and then agonized where to put them in the garden so the children could have places to stand when watering.  It had to be perfect. We arranged and organized and then rearranged and re-organized to make this the best looking garden ever in the history of preschool gardens. And then it happened.
The plants began to grow.  The cucumbers started vining out and so did this one big thing in the middle of the garden.  I knew the cucumbers were going to have vines running every which way but what was that big thing with those big leaves in the middle of the garden where there wasn't supposed to be anything?  One guess was a squash.  A second guess was a zucchini.  The best guess of all was a pumpkin.  How did that happen?
Remember the 100 hands that helped to till up the soil?  One of them accidentally planted a pumpkin seed in the middle of the well planned and designed to be pretty garden.  Have you ever seen a pumpkin vine out?  It takes over the entire space.
As I lamented the demise of my well planned and designed to be pretty garden to a friend she pointed out that "sometimes the things that are accidents turn out to be the best things that happen to us."  I was reminded of two things that day.  One, I have friends who are very wise and two, life is like a garden.  We can plan and design everything to be perfect but sometimes God plants a pumpkin to give you something better.

One for me and one for you.

Years ago I had this fantastic idea to have a worm farm at Heritage CDC.  How fun would that be?  That plan never quite took shape.  I would still like to have a worm farm one day but in the meantime I'm happy with the garden we started this spring. 
Why a school garden?  School gardens offer numerous benefits to children.  They enhance lives, promote a higher quality of learning and even provide a learning experience for all students.  It's so fun to watch children take ownership of a project.
The Heritage CDC Learning Garden is special because in addition to providing those benefits to our students we are also benefitting other families in our community.  We've partnered with the Forest Park Ministry Center in an effort to extend our learning to also include learning to be a better neighbor and friend.  The Forest Park Ministry Center will use the vegetables we grow in our garden to help enrich the diet and nutition of the families they service.

Hodding Carter, Jr. said "There are two lasting bequests we can give our children: one is roots.  The other is wings."  Join us at Heritage CDC as we root our children in God's love and give them wings to share God's love with others.