The Explosion

This happens every year, so how is it that we are always taken by surprise?
One day you have nothing. The next day you have wheelbarrows full of cucumbers.
The fruits (and veggies) of our labor are now here.
Okra, cucumbers and peppers are growing like crazy.
The tomato plants are full of fruit, just waiting for them to turn red.
Pumpkins are going strong, we should have a great fall harvest.

Lawrence has been passing out the veggies to his clients, his co-workers, the Malone Center, and other
families that can use the fresh produce.

We've had kids from the City Mission, GTS Youth Club and a few other facilities out to help us with the garden. What a great experience this is turning out to be!

People are being blessed by this project. What a great feeling!

BBQ and Basketball

The GTS Youth Club was once again able to come out and help us in the garden. Afterward, we went to the Milford City Park to have a cook out and, of course, play some basketball. A big thanks to Tim and Jean Springer and Kevin and Carmen Yeackley for helping us make it all happen!

A highlight for me was all the boys taking off their shoes so they wouldn't get them dirty in the garden. It had rained recently making the ground soft, but not sopping. I got a kick out of everyone walking barefoot and being able to feel the dirt on their feet. Growing up, I spent many summers barefoot on my family's acreage, including our vegetable garden. There is nothing like the smell or feel of rich, brown dirt. 

Many of the youth in the club live in the North central area of Lincoln, which does not have any full-court basketball courts, if you can believe it!  They were so excited to see a full length court at our park...finally a real game!

Everyone had a great time! They stayed until it was too dark out to see very well. Even at that point, one of the kids asked if they could stay longer and play some football.

Thanks Everyone!

Weeding onions.

More onion weeding.

Looking good!!!

Friends from Grand Island and Tim putting up the rest of the tomato cages.

GTS Youth Club arrives.

More tomato cages

Weed pulling demonstration.

Working hard!

More weeding.

Laying down straw.

They wouldn't look at the camera!

Eating ice cream.

Having fun with the camera

GTS Youth Club

This past Sunday we had a great visit from Angelo and some of the boys from his GTS Youth Club. 

And they got the job done!

It was fun for them and us. Many of these boys never get out of the city--it was a perfect evening with a perfect blue sky--I'm so glad they were able to experience it. One of the boys asked if he could just get a tent and camp out! 

Those of us fortunate to live in or close to the wide open space sometimes take it for granted.
The peacefulness.
The smell of the air.
The stillness.

Angelo and the boys are going to be regulars out at the garden. They are coming out this Saturday to work and then have a BBQ at our house. If you want to come be a part, let us know! 

To learn more about Angelo and the youth club and how you can help with his mission, visit his website at www.gtsyouthclub.org  What an amazing job he does with these young men. The love between all of them is clear.

We are so blessed to have met Angelo and are excited about our partnership with his program.

Lil' Bub taking a break.  

Mr. Angelo!

The Little Things

Life is about the little things.

Little things add up to make a big impact. 

Working in this garden has reinforced my belief that,

although God works in mysterious ways, 

most often He works in little ways.

When I think of all the little ways our Father has nurtured this project,

I am reminded of the beautiful passage in Matthew chapter 6. 

"Therefore I tell you,

do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink;

or about your body, what you will wear.

Is not life more important than food,

and the body more important than clothes?

 Look at the birds of the air;

they do not sow or reap or store away in barns,

and yet your heavenly Father feeds them.

Are you not much more valuable than they?

Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?

"And why do you worry about clothes?

 See how the lilies of the field grow?

They do not labor or spin.

Yet I tell you that

not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these.

If that is how God clothes the grass of the field,

which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire,

will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?

So do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?'

or 'What shall we drink?'

or 'What shall we wear?'

For the pagans run after all these things,

and your heavenly Father knows that you need them.

 But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness,

and all these things will be given to you as well.

Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself.

Each day has enough trouble of its own."

A wheelbarrow.

Bales of straw.

Garden hoes.

A van ride. 

Tillers.

So many little things.

 We continue to praise God for His quiet work in this little patch of ground.

Another Bump In the Road

Lawrence will be out of commission for basically the rest of the summer. He had surgery today to repair
a completely ruptured Achilles tendon. For the next month or so, you won't be seeing him out and about. He has a large cast on at the moment. In a couple of weeks he'll move to a "boot" which will give him much more mobility.

This disrupts the work schedule for the garden a little bit. We still have kids coming out Wednesday evenings and Saturday mornings, but we won't have kids Wednesday mornings, until Lawrence can go back to work.

Praise God that the surgery went well! We want to personally thank everyone for their thoughts and prayers during this time.

WOW!! And the Story Continues.......

We received a generous donation from one of Lawrence's friends.

We were able to buy soaker hose and all of the pepper and tomato cages!!!! 

Hooray! 

Thank you for your generosity! 

I feel like the story goes like this:
                      the son had a father,
because the father was a good man,
                     because the man was a boy,
because the boy was changed,
                     because he worked in the garden,
because someone brought him to the garden,
                     because someone planted the garden,
because someone believed in the garden. 

We never know how a seemingly insignificant act on our part can change the future of many generations.

This is how we see it.

Thank you all for your support!

Sad News

Well, we hit a bit of a bump in the road.

Our corn was not planted far enough from the seed corn in the adjacent field.

Because of cross pollination concerns, we had to till up the sweet corn so it would not effect the farmer's seed corn production.

What a sad day that was for us! But, it was a lesson learned.

Now we can focus on the rest of the garden, which is growing nicely!

So What Did We Plant?

I wish I could draw on here. Then I could show you exactly what we have planted and where it is in the garden.  The corn runs in rows from north to south. We have the other veggies in rows going east to west.

In order of rows, starting with the northern border, here is what we have. Tomatoes. Peppers. Cucumbers. Onions. Okra. Pumpkins.

We also sectioned off a little meeting area within the garden in the southwest corner. We planted sunflowers around the border of that meeting area. We will be planting kid size sunflowers in the northern border as well.

Can't wait to see everything popping up soon!

Memorial Day Madness!

WOW! That's all I can say! Monday morning was very fun, mostly because we got the rest of the garden planted. This was because Mr. S had rounded up an awesome group of volunteers to get the job done. In fact, I don't even think my hands touched the dirt that day!  I walked around taking pictures, generally making a nuisance of myself. I almost wanted to cry, just seeing other people taking time out of their Memorial Day to help us. It was truly an amazing experience to be a part of.  Saying thank you didn't cover it, so we bought everybody their own Gatorade. :-)

Mr. S (Tim), Brad's brother in law, Kevin, Brad, Lawrence and Lindsey. We were missing one volunteer in the picture, Jason, who came and tilled up the ground so we could plant the seeds.  Thank you! 

Here are a few more pictures of everyone hard at work.

Lindsey and Tim figuring it out.

 Planting okra.

Our high tech marking system: flags, broken sticks and yarn. Hey, it works!

More discussing

More planting

Slowly But Surely

Lawrence and I were out Saturday morning planting more peppers. He had to leave for work at 9.30, but we got a good 2 hrs in the garden.

Sunday afternoon, after church and before my nephew's baseball game, he picked up four of the youth he works with and brought them out to help us. Two young ladies helped me finish up the peppers while the two young men worked with Lawrence to hoe the weeds out of the corn rows.

We got a lot accomplished and the kids said they had a good time!

For those of you who don't know Lawrence, he works a lot. This is mainly so I can be at home with the boys. Right now he works about  75 hrs a week between a full time (paid) internship at Child Guidance Center in Lincoln and two part time jobs. His only full day home is Sunday (until he leaves for work in the evening). His free time is spent with us or working on this project.

Lawrence is studying for his Master's Degree in Counseling, and, once he finishes his 1000 internship hours (this fall), he'll be eligible to get his provisional license, which will make him one step closer to becoming a LMHP (Licensed Mental Health Practitioner). At this point, he'll probably be able to quit at least one of the part time jobs. Once he finishes his 3000 provisional hours, he will become fully licensed!

We have wanted to start a community outreach for quite some time, actually since before we were even married, almost 10 years ago. It is amazing to see it beginning after such a long wait.

Looking back we have clearly seen the hand of God in our lives, directing us and teaching us to wait on His timing. How incredible it is to know the love of God and the love of a Savior. We truly are blessed and want to pass on the love and support we have received to those living around us.

To us, it like a small thing  we are doing, in light of so much need. We are so grateful for all the help and encouragement we have received so far. Thank You!

Needs and Praises

The newest items to be added to the needs list are grass clippings and soaker hose. If you can help us out
with these, that would be great.

Please contact me by either phone or email at milfordgardens@windstream.net.
If you see me about town, you can talk to me then as well.  :-)

A big relief off my shoulders is the finalization of the supply of tin cans. I contacted Crestview Care Center and Sunrise Country Manor today about picking up the ones they discard and they are happy to give them to us. Along with the cans still being given to us by Pizza Kitchen, this should fully cover our need!

The Porta-potty  has arrived!

Mr. S also told me that a gentleman wants to not only supply sprinklers for the corn, but also set them up!  Thank You!!!

I'm going to be contacting the local papers to get the word out about what we are doing this summer.

This project is coming together bit by bit, Praise God!

To Market, To Market

We have secured a great locale to sell our produce! Mr. S said someone suggested using his church's (Milford Mennonite) extra lot as a local place to market our soon to be delicious veggies. Great idea!

It's important to our program to keep everything as local as we can. The kids working in the garden will be mainly from the Lincoln area, so we hope to entice some of our eastern neighbors out as well, to take a look at what Milford Gardens has to offer.

Be looking for the signs as it gets nearer to harvest time!

If You Plant It, They Will Come

Exciting news!

We have 3 groups of kids lined up to work in the garden for the whole summer. They'll be getting out of school at the end of next week and will be ready to help. Mr. G (my amazing hubby) is in charge of this and will be setting up a work schedule. 

How about you? 

Would you like to help?

Do you know any groups of kids (or adults) that would benefit from tending to their own garden? 

Would you like to donate supplies or money to the project?

Let us know!

You can contact me at milfordgardens@windstream.net.

And now I'm going to show off my own little helpers!