Winter 2015 This Issue Contains: • The Spiritual Nature of Gardening • Breaking Holy Ground • Uncharted waters • Meet The Intern • Straw Bale Cold Frame • Green Cubes • Homeade Laundry Soap
HELPING OTHERS HELP THEMSELVES
The Spiritual Nature of Gardening Director’s Update
THE MUNDANE BECOMES SPIRITUAL
Besides being a practical, life-nurturing task, gardening is also a spiritual activity. In this activity we attempt to make room for what is beautiful, healthy, and even holy. Identifying the best garden location, preparing the soil, planting the first seed, watering and caring for each plant until harvest; every step embodies a way of relating to creation and to God. In believing this world is God’s garden creation, it is a given that we will all participate in it. Though participation in the garden is a given, how we will take our place in the garden is not.
GROWING GARDENERS
Our goal at MSF is to help develop godly gardeners. This means that besides vegetables, flowers, and fruit, gardeners themselves are undergoing cultivation into something beautiful, healthy and holy. A caring, faithful, and worshipping humanity is one of the garden’s most important crops. As with vegetable crops, we cannot assume that the cultivation of humanity will be easy or always produce the desired fruit. Gardeners are not automatically virtuous simply by being in a garden and performing gardening work. Gardeners can be petty, impatient, and destructive.
PULLING WEEDS
Like weeds that crowd out desirable life in a garden they can also take root in our hearts, crowding out virtues and desires that witness to the glory of God. Traits like envy, arrogance, and impatience need to be weeded out of us so that the love of God and creation can take root. We need to learn first that we are creatures dependent upon God and each other, and then act accordingly. God does not merely create the world and then let it go. Rather, God attends to the world by tending it like a gardener, holding its soil and breathing life into it.
GOD IS A FARMER
In Psalm 65:9-11 it reads,“You visit the earth and water it, you greatly enrich it; the river of God is full of water; you provide the people with grain, for so you have prepared it. You water its furrows abundantly, settling its ridges, softening it with showers, and blessing its growth. You crown the year with your bounty; your wagon tracks overflow with richness.”
ATTENTIVE
God is continually in his garden creation, watering and feeding it, but also weeding and pruning it. God delights in the fruitfulness of its life, just as God expresses sorrow over its disease or death. God is continuously watchful and alert to the dangers that can disrupt the garden’s life. God is faithful even when the garden does not produce fruit as planned. The true gardener, inspired by God, demonstrates the kind of curiosity, delight, and devotion where no detail is too small not to be attended to, and no life so insignificant as not to warrant celebration.
MEANT TO BE
Like God, gardeners find their rest in the garden, are committed to its well-being, and know there is no other place they would rather be and no work they would rather perform. When we garden well, creatures are nurtured and fed, the world is received as a blessing, and God is glorified.
T
he sisters of Holy Name Monastery in Saint Leo, Florida, have added a new centerpiece to their grounds with which they can successfully make the leap towards a more self-sustainable lifestyle.
One may ask how a monastery has come to be a part of this new effective way to produce food. What we must understand is that we all possess the ability to keep an open mind to these new possibilities and should be prepared for more This long awaited, twenty-four foot wide, for- projects such as these. ty-eight foot long greenhouse sits as an answered prayer holding more than 200 Tilapia and the ability to produce 400 plants. Not only are they able to provide food for themselves but also valuable knowledge to the students of the neighboring Saint Leo University. Sister Miriam Cosgrove, one of the leading sources of passion for the movement, was a past graduate of Morning Star Fishermen’s 5 day course which allowed her to take that knowledge from the classroom and use it towards providing fresh food for the monastery for years to come. Because they are growing fresh fish, this monastery is Since then, Morning Star Fishermen has realready a step ahead of mained in constant contact with the Holy Name the much larger busiMonastery providing knowledgeable help along nesses getting their the way. The sisters encourage anyone who Tilapia from China wants to volunteer and be a part of their aquawhich, many are not ponic process to contact Sister Cosgrove at aware,are under poor conditions as (352) 588-8320. far as sanitation. Sister Miriam Cosgrove standing next to the new greenhouse.
Left: Installing framework for greenhouse. Right: MSF Alumni John, prepping barrel to be a biofilter. And laying down new styrofoam rafts in grow beds.
“The Lord will guide you always; he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land and will strengthen your frame. You will be like a well-watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail.� - Isaiah 58:11
Right: Construction almost complete. Next is water and fish. Left: MSF Operation Manager, Christian Geissler, installing drains in the fish tanks.
Right: MSF Executive Director Phil Reasons, about to release first tilapia in new system.
Uncharted Waters
Our salt water aquaponics is well under way now. Certainly long enough for us to see incredable growth in our redfish fingerlings we stocked just 5 months ago. The sea-perslane is growing incredibly well. We are now looking for markets and restaurants to sell to. Not all has gone so well though as with most farming operations there are challenges. We have been visited by a small army of moths and their pesky predecessor the catapiller. Our salicorniea shows a slight nutrient deficiency, and our nitrates are reaching the upward limits accepted by our red fish. Now comes the fun part. We get to work out all of the problems
and develop the most effective and productive methods of maintaining a saltwater aquaponics system. This project has progressed because of the committed efforts of all colabrotive partners the University of Florida, the University of South Florida, Mote Marine Laboratories and Morning Star Fishermen.
Meet the
A
Intern
lexandra Sides, or Allie as everyone around Morning Star calls her, was born in Tarpon Springs, Florida thereby instilling a curiosity for marine life at an early age. “I remember just wanting to do something meaningful with marine life and also help others but it was hard to find a balance,” she recalls. It wasn’t until eight years after she had moved with her family to Dade City that she finally saw what was placed in front of her the whole time. She explains that it was a simple drive by the Morning Star Fishermen Aquaponic Research and Training Center that grabbed her attention.
“I had spent so much time trying to accomplish what I wanted to do outside of Dade City that I never saw what was ten minutes down the road!” After walking in that first day she was quick to learn how everyone at Morningstar was so quick to teach. From that point on, she was a volunteer having fun and learning every minute she was there.
“Have an unquenchable curiosity.”
A few months later, and now a Biology major at Saint Leo University, she is now an intern looking forward to being a part of Morningstar’s bright future. Allie spends four hours a day, four days a week interning and is still learning every day. On the subject of future interns and what they may need to know she shares, “have an unquenchable curiosity, a willingness to learn from those around you and don’t be afraid to get wet!”
Straw Bale Cold Frame C
old frames such as the ones pictured can allow you to grow plants specified as one or two zones warmer then where you are. For example, if you live in zone 8, you should be able to grow plants from zones 9 and 10.
WHAT TO USE
We recommend using straw bales because hay bales contain various grass seeds that will later sprout up in your soil. The lid can be made from recycled doors and windows. Try looking on freecycle.com or craigslist. com.
HOW TO DO IT
Before surrounding your growing space with bales be sure to get rid of weeds and lay down a barrier to discourage them from coming back such as mulch. Next stack the bales high enough so your plants don’t reach the glass. Stuff access straw inbetween any gaps to reduce drafts. Ventilation is simple: just place a brick under one end of a window to prop it up, slide it partially to the side,
or remove it entirely. Be sure the window is secure to avoid crushed transplants or broken glass.
Hay
Hay is the top portion of grasses or legumes harvested before the crops go to seed. It’s high in nutrients and best to feed to livestock. It costs more than double the price of straw.
Partial credit to: appalachianfeet.com
Straw
Vs.
Straw is the bottom portion of the crop, harvested after the top portion of the crop is cut. It’s lightweight and best for animal bedding and composting.
Green Cubes This resourcefull tip will come in handy the next time you make a smoothie or have leafy greens about to go bad. Wheather growing swiss chard in your garden, buying spinach in bulk, or you can’t eat your khale before it goes bad, try this method. 1. Fill up your blender with fresh greens (in this case spinach), add a bit of water and blend. 2. Pour it into an ice cube tray and freeze 3. Take them out of the ice cube tray when frozen. (The cubes can be stored in a ziploc bag) 4. When it’s time to make a smoothie, pop a few cubes into your blender, and add some fruit and liquid.
Enjoy!
Credit to: rowdystroudy.blogspot.com
HOMEADE LAUNDRY SOAP
This homeade soap works well with top load and front load washing machines, and is a fraction of the cost of store-bought detergent. It is low sudsing, the cleaning power comes from the ingredients, not the suds. As a result, its easier on your septic tank.
INGREDIENTS:
SUPPLIES:
4 Cups - hot water 1 Fels-Naptha soap bar 1 Cup - Arm & Hammer Super Washing Soda* ½ Cup Borax
Grater Measuring cup Funnel Large saucepan 5 Gallon bucket Empty Jugs**
YEILDS:
An approximate total of 10 gallons of liquid soap. Top Load Machine- 5/8 Cup per load (Approx. 180 loads) -Front Load Machines- Âź Cup per load (Approx. 640 loads)
DIRECTIONS:
Grate bar of soap and add to saucepan with water. Stir continually over medium-low heat until soap dissolves and is melted. Fill a 5 gallon bucket half full of hot tap water. Add melted soap, washing soda and Borax. Stir well until all powder is dissolved (a paint stir stick can be used for this). Fill bucket to top with more hot water. Stir, cover and let sit for one or two nights to thicken.
Reasons To Make Your Own Laundry Soap The average cost of conventional detergent is 20 cents per load, this receipe is about 7 cents per load.
Use your hands to stir and break up the gel clumps. Dip a measuring cup into the bucket to fill with soap. Insert funnel into empty jug** and pour from measuring cup into jug. Fill 1 part soap to one part water, ex: pour two cups of soap then two cups of water. Fill a few inches below top to allow room to shake. Shake before each use. (will gel) You can add 10-15 drops of essential oil per 2 gallons. Add once soap has cooled. Ideas: lavender, rosemary, tea tree oil. *Baking Soda will not work, nor will Arm & Hammer Detergent - It must be sodium carbonate. **The best containers to pour your soap into are empty detergent jugs. If you use milk jugs or drinking water jugs, only fill them with soap once. After that the plastic breaksdown.
Most store bought laundry soap contains chemicals harmful to us and our environment. This soap receipe has more stain-fighting power than other manufactured detergents.