Missional Urban Gardening

We are missionaries. We know that God has called us to go to dark places and bring good news and hope. Hyde Park is a dark place. It's not a horrible place. There are good people here. There is beautiful architecture. There is a remarkable history. But the neighborhood has been in a state of desolation for generations. Many businesses and residents have fled, violence and drugs continue to be a problem. Fear and hopelessness are still present. And we feel that God is doing something here.

Part of what He is doing is calling us to urban gardening. We see it as working hand in hand with the other aspects of our ministry. It has the same goal of spiritual and physical transformation. We want to come alongside people and bring them the Gospel and hope, empowerment and change, confidence and edification, food and education. We can see the vision and the potential, but we still don't know how to go about every aspect.

There is a group of children who regularly play in one of our gardens. We've talked with them, and they've helped us plant. But they also leave their trash, tear up plants, steal produce, and lie to us about all of it. Residents of the neighborhood regularly steal produce, not caring that they did nothing at all to help the plants grow. When we've confronted them, they always say they thought it was a community garden, denying the fact that at the heart of a community garden is the idea of community: people working together toward a common goal. We've also had huge problems this year with weather and pests, and with communicating with the schools whose gardens we manage. Plus, there is the always present physical reality of garden maintenance, which takes from 6-12 hours per week for all three gardens.

Though it can be frustrating at times, and though we still don't have the clearest path for how to move forward, we want to and we will, because the potential is huge. Having an established garden in which to teach people (and learn ourselves) is priceless. Being able to come alongside a family and empower them in such an essential way can change their lives. Partnering that physical ministry with the love and hope of Jesus Christ will eventually transform the community. Watching another neglected, desolate lot, which had been a financial burden on an already burdened city, be transformed into a garden that produces life and food will declare to the community that conditions can change and people do care.

This is definitely a huge undertaking, taking place in an even greater vision. There is much to learn, and we plan to share that in this blog. This is an adventure that we and this community will have with God as He brings transformation to St. Louis.

PESTS!!!!!

This spring/summer we ran into a lot of pests! We had aphids on our greens, cabbage worms/moths on our broccoli and squash vine borers on all our squash plants so needless to say we had our pest problems. We had a friend in the neighborhood who gave us some home remedies that would get rid of them. So here are the recipes and what they can deter.

Cayenne Pepper/flour mix

It's just that - Cayenne pepper and flour. I put 2 cups of flour in a bowl and mix in Cayenne pepper till mix is pink. I put it in a salt shaker with the holes drilled out and it worked great. Shake on leaves of plants and on steam after watering. Vary effective on aphids. The friend said this will work for pretty much any pest from aphids to rabbits and cats. When you get ready to eat produce make sure you scrub the mix off.

Oil/water/soap mix

mix in a spray bottle

2 tablespoons of cayenne pepper oil (my mother grew cayenne peppers 2 years ago. She put some cayenne peppers in veggie oil and olive oil. You can just put them in veggie oil to save money.)

2 teaspoons of dish soap (hand soap works just not as well as dish soap)

Then fill rest of bottle with water. Shake. Then spray on bugs. Good for the flying bugs like cabbage moths, Japanese beetle and squash bugs.

You can use a bucket of soapy water to knock japanese beetles and other pests into. The soap breaks down the surface tension of the water and allows it to flow into the bugs' breathing holes. And then for those pesky eggs what we have found to work and is slightly gratifying is using a long necked lighter to burn those suckers!

Hope these work for you as well as they do for us!

Herb drying time!!!

In one of our gardens we have an herb garden. We have 8 different kinds of herbs! In this post I discover how to dry herbs.


My first drying experience was with mint!










I picked the mint....












Then I washed it and drained it......












Then I separated it and laid it out on the dehydrator
making sure none of the leaves are touching or stuck
together!













It comes out way smaller than you would think. So if you
think you picked alot....you didn't! I picked half a grocery bag full and got 1/4 of a sandwich bag full.














Then I made a big mistake....I put it in the coffee grinder.
This made a very fine powder. I would put the dried
leaves in a zip lock bag and crush with fingers. Don't do it
too much!







I did another batch and I am going to use it for teas!

There you go! A How-To on drying herbs! hope you liked it! Let me know if you have any questions...I'll try to answer them!

Urban Gardening!

I have had the privilege of starting my first urban garden(or 3) in the inner city of St.Louis! Me and my boyfriend have taken on 3 gardens in the city limits of St.Louis 20 blocks from downtown. We work as missionaries for Sun Ministries. We were approached by Gateway Greening about 1 community and 2 school gardens they wanted us to take care of these gardens. We are going to take these school and community gardens and turn them into Opportunity Gardens. These Opportunity Gardens will sell the produce to people in the neighborhood and take the money and hire kids from the ages of 14 to 16 on agricultural permits to keep them out of trouble and next to our missionaries.

We are both new to this gardening thing. I helped my mom with our garden when I was young but I was young and only got to pull weeds. My boyfriend has had little experience as well his dad has a small garden in his back yard. It was a little much when the opportunity for us to manage 3 gardens of 32 beds in all roughly 5x10 each came to us.We took on this project this past winter. So we entered a class for beginning gardeners and read alot and asked a lot of questions. Not only were there 3 gardens but 2 of them were a mess and 1 of them had never been planted!!!! So with volunteers and help from friends and family we have gotten all 3 gardens planted!!!! BUT!!!!! We have had our issues and pests and critters and intruders! We have had almost anything you could think of...we have had anywhere from Aphids to Squash Vine Borers to Rabbits to People steeling produce to people trying to steel whole plants!!!! So far we have learned a few things for this Urban gardening thing. On this blog I will give you tips, quick cures, pictures and funny stories! so sit back relax and have fun reading this blog!


-Amy