Obsessed With Growing

I've fallen in love with gardening over the last several years. 

Flowers, veggies, putting on gloves and digging in the dirt make my eyes light up.

On weekends where there are  no soccer tournaments or family events, 

we head to several farmer's markets, hardware stores and gardening centers

where I spend hours buying local produce, gardening soil, seeds and plants. 

My kids are sick and tired of hearing me say 

"What if we just bought a farm, moved to the country and acted like pioneers?"

To say the least, I am married to and raising city folk.

Sigh.

If gardening was fun four months ago, losing my little brother has turned planting things 

into a full blown passion.

The Hero tells me all the time that I am obsessed with growing things. 

I balked at this statement for a few weeks. 

But after several hours outside yesterday, I looked around to notice I have indeed become

somewhat determined to overflow bare dirt with things that grow. 

Empty pots, flower beds, vases, and bare ground better beware around the Andrews Casa lately.

It's the best therapy for grief I know. 

I am definitely a battle wounded warrior, as are so many others who have lost someone they love.

Living here, fulfilling purpose is about growing, not only ourselves but those around us so that there can be something beautiful, here on Earth and one day in heaven. 

So yes, perhaps I am obsessed with growing things. 

Not only in the ground, but in the hearts and lives of whom I come into contact.

So go grow something today. 

Growth Indoors: An Experiment

 



So it may be a smidge understated that I am having a hard time dealing with the cooler weather around here. The thought of not being able to play outside in the garden and watching every thing in our backyard freeze over always depresses me slightly.

 

By January, I'm over the weather and the bickering kids on the weekends and am ready to start pruning trees and tilling dirt. This year, I decided to experiment with growing a few things inside in order to combat a post-Super Bowl depression (that really is the only reason there is a January right?). The Hero seems to believe that I have once again taken my projects overboard, but I think I kept myself in check for the most part. 

 

Exhibit A: Our dining room table. One tomato plant, a jalapeno plant and a Tabasco pepper plant. This area of the house gets great sunlight and we never eat here, so these babies are guaranteed to have a warm and safe winter.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Exhibit B: Our kitchen counter across from our giant window that overlooks the back yard.

 

 

 

 

 

Exhibit C: Window sill in the kitchen. Those two tiny little sprouts are romaine lettuce. We'll see how they hold up. I am fully aware that lettuce can be grown outside for awhile past cooler weather and even some times past frost, but our immediate neighbors have decided feeding rabbits are a great idea. Apparently, they love eating here better, so I'm forced to try inside earlier than I would have liked.

 

 

 

 

Any one else growing something inside this winter?  How else do you bust the winter time blues?

Garden Planning 2014: Bat Houses?

Spring of 2014 will be my third spring planting a garden. I never would have thought a little hobby of ours would have grown into a 1/4 of our backyard and one of my favorite parts of every day. As I am making my list of what I want to add for next year, I've been researching a lot of garden supply blogs and stores online. 

Since Oklahoma didn't have much of a harsh winter last year, our mosquito population exploded this year. It felt as though every evening in the garden was cut short to being covered with whelps and bites over every inch of our bodies. The Hero sprayed organic spray, we doused ourselves in repellent before going outside and we avoided the most prevalent times of the day to work out in the garden, but all was for not. 

As I researched ways to rid ourselves of mosquitoes and Calamine lotion, I read that bats are avid mosquito hunters. In fact, one bat can eat between 500-1000 mosquitoes in an HOUR?!! I was intrigued. 

Bats appear to not cause damage to property, butterflies, pets or kids. And the only thing you need to do in order to attract them is to put up a bat house. A house for bats? I know. Right. I never knew there was such a thing. 

Take this beauty for example: 

It is a two chambered model, offered by www.gardenharvestsupply.com at is a two chambered model. Breeding couples are housed on one side and single bats can live on the opposite side. The instructions state that the house should be placed fifteen feet above the ground, and for quicker occupation, place the house on a pole or a structure as opposed to a tree; as bats seem to dislike navigating around tree branches and leaves. 

This model claims to hold up to 100 bats! 

Ok. Fess up. Are you intrigued or creeped out by watching a bunch of bats over your garden at twilight? Anyone familiar with bat houses? 

What's To Love About August

August in Oklahoma is the hottest month of the year. 

Growing up here all of my life use to leave me groaning every day in this 100 plus temps.

But the longer I live here, the more I have come to fall in love with August. 

There are very few months that have such a flux of change.

Sweet comings and goings, graspings and savorings that not many months here possess.

August brings new beginnings with school. 

School supplies piled high, the smell of new erasers and readjusting to life on a schedule.

Savoring the last bit of growing beauty before fall takes over and the air chills out. 

The last bit of grasping to lazy days and naps for no good reason. 

The final bits of friends visiting for the summer. 

The garden in full swing as the veggies and fruits craving the hottest part of the heat in order to blossom and produce. 

Sweating in the kitchen, canning the fullness of abudance to savor come winter.

Escaping outdoors a few more moments to explore and discover. 

Anticipation of  the opening of our States second religion...football..

While the air is hot and most people spend most of Oklahoma's Augusts indoors, there is so much to love about this month that I'm almost sad to see it go. 

Every Good Thing

I love this time of year. 

The growth, the heat, the shades of green.

I started gardening two years ago. 

It's the most amazing communion with God's world I have every day.

From the first tomato on the vine yesterday,

to my first eggplant ever,

our first time growing sunflowers,

 dreaming about pickles soon to come,

the two teensy raspberries, 

and my favorite daylily plant.

All is grace,

All is good 

and it is our personal gifts from our Maker.

Daily changing. 

But worth exploring to discover. 

Every. Single. Day.

"Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights..."James 1:17

What have you been blessed with this weekend?

My Rules

I think The Hero has acclimated nicely to being married to a justice junkie, spontaneously thinking crazy woman such as myself. He has very few rules that I must follow when developing a project, a plan or an idea. And while the rules are few, I still have a hard time following them from time to time. It's not because I am intending to break the rules, but most often it is because I forget.

Here are the rules:

1.) I cannot be led solely from emotion.
Allegedly, the rule doesn't allow for a reactionary response based upon my ability to be moved at a moment's notice. Like when I asked if we could become home base for all the animals and children displaced from Hurricane Katrina. He simply smiled and said "Rule #1".

2.) The decision I make cannot force us to move more than 50 miles outside our current location without prior notice. This rule was developed upon our first trip from Ethiopia wherein I announced on the airplane we were selling our home, cashing in his retirement plan with the fire department and opening an orphanage in Ethiopia for needy children.

3.) If The Hero is expected to be exert money, time or energy on one of my projects, I have to successfully implement and maintain such enthusiasm for a defined length of time. This defined length of time is also determined by The Hero, not me. This rule developed after reading Jen Hatmaker's 7 last year and advising The Hero I had hired a bulldozer to demolish our back yard and till up a garden plot that if successful would mean our kids' swing set must be demolished to make way for potatoes.

As I previously indicated in my last post, I love this time of year. As dominated the kitchen table a few weeks ago with growth charts, almanacs, seed catalogs and soil tests, The Hero tried to slink into his Lazyboy undetected. No dice.
"Hey did you rent the tiller for the garden space this year?" I batted my eyes his direction for effect.

"Uh...you're doing that again this year?" He was already looking for an escape route from the living room.

I stared out the kitchen window and daydreamed. "I grew tomatoes, herbs, raspberries, blackberries, blueberries, cucumbers, leafy greens and peppers last year. This year I think we need to move the kids swing set to make room for a cut flower garden, garlic, strawberries, okra, black-eyed peas, onions and carrots. What do you think?"

I turned around to discover he was headed out of the living room mumbling something about Rule #3.


- Hugs n Love,

Lindsey

The Thing About A Garden

The thing about having a garden is that it is a lot like having another child.

The waiting.

Trying to remember patience.

Dreaming of the future.

Being diligent about weed removal.

Hoping for the maximum amount of growth.

Studying diseases and organic home remedies.

And while all of that sounds like a lot of work.

Trust me, most days it is just work.

Watching each individual plant mature and produce,

is such an amazing joy.

We are learning more about how God developed our world.

And yet, we are also learning about how He develops our hearts.

No wonder there is so much scripture about seeds and harvests.

The Angel calls this the world's smallest jalapeno plant.

But if you look close, you can tell there are at least two,

 just waiting to mature.

What Started As A Packet.

I told you guys awhile back that The Hero had plowed an area of our back yard just for me. He put a fence around it and added the most adorable garden gate. I really only intended for this to have a bench, a few stepping stones, a small fountain and a couple of veggie plants. I wanted a place to  pray, meditate and simple praise God in the simplicity of my own version of a Mommy's time out locale.
And then we went to the hardware store.
The kids and I both were enraptured. Rows and rows of brightly colored packets of future tomatoes, beans, cucumbers, radishes and five different variations of lettuce. We stood for close to an hour pouring through the spacing, depth and sunlight requirements for each possible purchase. We decided to only take home a seed packet for tomatoes.
Now don't get me wrong, I like all of the by products that a good tomato sacrifices their lives for: marinara, ketchup and who could pass up, SALSA! But slice it off the vine and eat it, eh, I could do without. The Hero however; well I think he believes tomatoes are this generations version of manna. Add a little salt and  pepper and he'll eat tomatoes until he gets mouth sores.
$1.29, seedling pods and dreams of salsa every night for dinner later, we were home. The kids and I planted the packet of seeds, filled it with water, scoured the house for an appropriate sun-lit location and waited. Every day was just as exhilarating as the next. Wake up, rush down stairs and "oooh" and "aaahh" only to discover that nothing had happened the previous night.
Then came day 10.
The screams and leaps around the living room at the sight of a tiny seedling poking through the dirt was amazing.
Since we could no longer be declared total failures, we marched back the following weekend to purchase lettuce, carrots, spinach, cucumbers, bell peppers, jalapenos, banana peppers and broccoli.
The Hero was just elated that saying "hardware store" no longer meant groans and protests from all parties.
Almost two months later and we've added, basil, dill, rosemary, cilantro, onions, sweet potatoes, blueberries, raspberries and blackberries. 
Each night the kids and I walk through our growing slice of earth, pick weeds, check for new growth, stand amazed at how something so small can continue to keep growing. It's still so beautiful to me  knowing that a seed can produce a plant, which blooms into a fruit which can sustain our lives...and our souls. I've been able to not only speak but SHOW my kids God's love for us all through a process that occurs every spring. He has provided for us in so many ways and turned an entire planet into a way to meet our needs.
If there's every any doubt that there is a Creator who loves us, just go plant a seed.


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