It really is easy...

Yes, it really is easy to have a productive garden.  One needn't feel like gardening "success" is measured in acres and tons (or even bushels).  Here is a good "get-you-started" guide for what to grow. 
*Edit*: Also, there's this, explaining a bit about those seed packet you find everywhere this time of year.  

Looking forward to 2014's garden season!

Well...  The crocuses are blooming, and by my personal gardening calendar, that means it is almost time to start sowing seeds for this summers gardens.  This is ALWAYS an exciting time of year for me.  This year the excitement is compounded with my recent "promotion" (not really, but that's the most succinct way of putting it) to be in on the administrative side of the community gardens at and around Northern Kentucky University. 

Introducing the Harvest Stewards Board of Directors

In the process of rearranging things here... We now have a Board of Directors, and it is an impressive lot:

John Crossman is President of Crossman & Company, one of the largest retail leasing, management, development, and marketing firms in the Southeastern United States. John and I were college roommates at Florida State University where, in 1993, John earned his B.S. in Real Estate. John is deeply involved in charitable activities including Good News Jail & Prison Ministry and I Am Second in Orlando, Florida where he and his wife, Angie, live with their daughters Claire (10) and Ava (8).

Curt Buermeyer is a graduate of Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University, where he earned a B.A. In Psychology. Curt and I were graduate school classmates. We studied together at the University of North Carolina, where he earned his PhD in clinical psychology. Curt worked for 5 years in private practice and at the National Leadership Institute. In 2007 he left private practice to focus exclusively on leadership development. He later founded LeadPeople LLC, an executive coaching and leadership consultancy. Curt, his wife Nikki, and three children (Luke, 12; Allie, 11; and Tyler,7) live in Herndon, Virginia.

Maggie Gough is a native of Boone County, Kentucky and a graduate of Eastern Kentucky University where she earned her degree in Dietetics. Maggie is a Registered Dietician and has been the Assistant Director of Wellness at Northern Kentucky University since 2011. It is through her involvement as the Coordinator of the Highland Heights/Northern Kentucky Community Gardens that I came to know Maggie. She and her husband Brad live in Cincinnati with their daughter Ainsley, 2 ½, who will be a big sister any day now.

Sue Plummer, a graduate of Bowling Green State University (B.A., French) and the University of Cincinnati (M.A., History), is an Education Specialist for Mercy Neighborhood Ministries in the Walnut Hills area of Cincinnati. It was Sue's work as Manager of the Julie Hanser Community Garden that caused our paths to cross in 2010, when she delivered a presentation on her work there to the Community Garden Development Training course I was attending. Sue and her partner Dave live in the Avondale neighborhood of Cincinnati.

Late-season, 2013

It has been a slow summer in the gardens, but we've just rounded up a good chunk of squash and beans and corn (yay for "Three Sisters" gardening!) and some sweet potatoes. So we're a shade over 30 pounds thus far. And although it's late in the season, we've got a lot of time left!

I had an insightful tête-à-tête with my good friend and executive coach, Dr. Curt Buermeyer recently.
I've known Curt for almost 2 decades, and right from the beginning, I realized that he was a forward-thinker, one who had a kind of prescience and ability to easily grasp the big-picture of things. Curt and I discussed how we might take Harvest Stewards from being a nice, clever idea to being a substantial and influential movement; something that leads people, something not only with purpose but also with a magnified impact. Much of our conversation circled around defining and segmenting Harvest Stewards' customer base. “Customers?”, you might ask; “How can you have customers when you GIVE stuff away for free?” Yeah, I thought the same things. But as we talked, it became ever clearer that apart from serving the needs of hungry folks, Harvest Stewards can also serve the needs of donors -of those who have money to put towards a charitable cause. Considering this customer segment, I see Harvest Stewards occupying a special niche. Harvest Stewards brings a unique value set to the table. First, all of our efforts are concentrated right here in the Greater Cincinnati area. Donations don't have to travel very far at all to be put to good work; donations help our very own neighbors and neighborhoods. Moreover, the type of food aid Harvest Stewards offers is uniquely life-changing not only for the recipient but also for the gardeners who contribute. We know that the people who receive food aid from Harvest Stewards generally do not make fresh produce a part of their regular fare. Produce, after all, is expensive, compared to so many other processed pre-packaged foods. Some of our recipients live in what we now call “food deserts”- those areas in which proper grocery stores are nowhere to be found. Whatever the case, and for whatever reasons, Harvest Stewards introduces folks to fresh, locally-grown (and most often, organically-grown) food. Part of our aim in this respect is to get folks to stay in the habit of eating healthful foods, eschewing junk foods. I also said that the food aid Harvest Stewards provides can be life-changing for the gardeners who so kindly and generously sacrifice their hard-won garden treasures. The connection between the gardener and the recipient is so very direct- from my hands to your mouth, essentially. This is intimately compassionate. To get more and more people involved in this kind of thoughtful, compassionate giving? That would be a profoundly positive, deeply transformational turn in the world. How could one not want to be a part of such a thing?
Many thanks to Dr. Curt Buermeyer for a good skull-session and the clarity that it has engendered (with more to come, for sure!).

A friend just recommended Food Not Lawns: How to Turn Your Yard into a Garden And Your Neighborhood into a Community. I haven't read it, but it seems like the sort of thing that should interest me. The title is more or less exactly what I would like to see churches (in particular) doing as a rule rather than as the exception. More on this later, after I finish reading it.

NKU Press Release, 7 December 2012

Here's a nice little press release about Harvest Stewards and the work we did last Summer with a group of community gardens around NKU. Many thanks to Maggie Gough for writing this!

Community Gardeners Share Bountythrough Partnership with Harvest Stewards
HIGHLAND HEIGHTS, Ky. – The Northern Kentucky Community Gardens has partnered with the newly established local nonprofit Harvest Stewards, LLC, to get produce into local food pantries. Each week Shan Bentz, director of Harvest Stewards, sets out and collects a bin at each garden site for gardeners to voluntarily share any excess vegetables they might have.

During the first growing season with the partnership in place, Harvest Stewards collected over 115 pounds of produce. The food that Harvest Stewards collected has gone to Action Ministries, Fairhaven Rescue Mission and Be Concerned.

“Most gardeners reach a point where they have more tomatoes or zucchinis than they know what to do with and we are glad to have provided them with a meaningful place to send such nutritious food,” said Rachel Wirrig, a gardener and member of the Northern Kentucky Community Garden Committee and associate pastor of Asbury United Methodist Church.

Bentz said the new partnership helps spread the Harvest Stewards narrative of “growing a little, giving a little.” He said it is not only the recipients of the produce who benefit through this type of program; it also helps create a greater sense of community, interdependence and responsibility for the care of others.

The Northern Kentucky Community Gardens will continue to partner with Harvest Stewards and Wirrig encourages other community garden sites to do so as well. “All we had to do was agree to let [Harvest Stewards] place the bins and let the gardeners know the option to share was available. Shan did the rest. It was so easy,” she said.

Harvest Stewards, LLC is working toward becoming a 501c3 charitable giving organization and Bentz said the organization hopes to expand its garden partnerships.

A different take on “junk food”

What a clever idea! I just finished reading a short piece in The Economist about a program in Mexico City that allows residents to “barter” their recyclables for fresh produce. I am seriously considering how Harvest Stewards might incorporate such an element of exchange in our food ministry. It seems like a great idea. Just to be clear, there's virtually no way at all that the market prices for recyclable materials could cover the cost of the foods delivered. But right now we're just giving them away anyway, so it certainly couldn't cost more.

100+

Here we are at the end of the growing season. It's been a good one, and I am grateful to the many community gardeners who have so generously donated from their gardens to the cause of feeding hungry folks. This year we grew, collected and donated over one hundred pounds of fresh produce. Those squash I mentioned in the previous post: they weighed in at around nine pounds, so we're now at 108.5 pounds for the year.

Late season update

In the last few weeks we've taken in and delivered quite a handy load of fresh vegetables (well fruits really, if you want to be perfectly accurate). One of our Northern Kentucky Community Gardeners, Terri Turner, generously ceded her plot for Harvest Stewards to glean a couple of weeks ago. “There may be a few tomatoes there, so take whatever you can find”, she told me in an email. In fact, there was well over 8 pounds of premium quality romas, yellow pears, beefsteaks and cherries to be had! Thanks so much, Terri! The folks at Be Concerned were so pleased to get them. With collections like that, plus some late-season harvest from the LBC Garden, our season total is just shy of 100 pounds! (99.52, to be precise.) I know we'll break the hundred pound mark, because there are at least two or three healthy butternut squash that will be donated once they ripen. Many thanks to all the gardeners who have so thoughtfully dropped a little bit here and a little bit there to help us feed hungry folks!

A great haul

The Northern KY Community Gardeners have really been great.  This morning I collected and delivered over fifteen pounds of produce -beans, tomatoes, cucumbers, squash, melons and peppers- from the donation baskets at the gardens!  So far we're a few ounces shy of fifty pounds of donated produce this year.  I'm looking forward to passing along another fifty or so pounds by the end of the season.  This morning's produce went to the Fairhaven Rescue Mission in Covington.

Update, 25 July 2012

How exciting it is to have the cooperation of Northern Kentucky gardeners!  There is, in Highland Heights, a small cluster of 3 community gardens.  We have begun collecting their donations of produce.  Just this morning, in fact, I collected a nice 5lb. box of tomatoes.  It was a real joy to deliver these to our newest partner, Be Concerned, in Covington, KY.  It's a great operation:

More than 1200 families each month ease financial hardship by shopping at Be Concerned. Through our food program, groceries and toiletries are distributed weekly to low-income families at no charge. Customers shop on a rotating basis by scheduled appointments. Individual selection of goods are important aspects of the program.

Exactly the sort of thing Harvest Stewards is aimed at helping!  

On consumer choice, food deserts and variability

The matter of obesity and "food deserts" is an interesting one.  You may well have heard about the link between obesity and food deserts; you may also have heard more recently that the link between obesity and food deserts is specious.  Hard to say what the truth really is- I suspect somewhere in the middle.  The heart of the matter is indeed consumer choice, but it isn't as simple as just that.  Why would folks choose to eat fast food to the exclusion of healthier fare, all other things being equal?  I am certain that it comes down to variability: there is very little variability in the quality and taste of what one will eat at a McDonald's in Cincinnati and one in, say, Phoenix.  There is, however, a great deal of variability in the quality and taste of good healthy produce commonly available in those two cities -or even within the same city.  So if one is poor, one quite rationally spends one's limited resources on the food that will reliably yield a satisfactory (if unhealthy) meal. 

The solution?  There is no one solution, of course.  Maybe this is a benefit we can confer- giving folks an economically "risk-free" chance to get to know and like healthier foods. 

Old plot, new garden

The third gardening season at the Latonia Baptist Church garden is on.  This year's crops will include (in order from back to front) tomatoes, okra, cucumbers, bell peppers; and (along the right edge of the garden) pole beans. 

Even better than having this garden set up for the season is the fact that Harvest Stewards will be canvassing some local community gardens this season -AND we've got some new volunteers too! 

Looking forward to a productive season!

Planting seeds

Very exciting to finally feel like the season is underway.  After a peculiarly warm late-Winter, it now feels as if the season is really ready to turn for good. 

I had the opportunity to meet with some community gardeners in Highland Heights this evening, to pitch the Harvest Stewards idea.  This season, we're targeting community gardens.  We hope to take advantage of the fact that folks may have to be absent from their beloved beans and tomatoes and zucchini on account of Summer vacationing.  When gardeners are unable to make it to their plots, they let us know and we check in on the plot during the gardener's absence to harvest and donate whatever is ready to be picked.  And, of course, we hope to prevail upon the good will of the gardeners to throw some surplus produce at us as well.  One person can only eat so much zucchini in one summer, after all...

I was also able to unload quite a lot of seeds donated to me by Baker Creek Nurseries.  It is great to see those seeds going to good use!

Organic Vanity?

I read with interest the Wall Street Journal's "Weekend Interview" with Peter Brabeck-Letmathe .  The headline of the piece is a provocative question: "Can the world still feed itself?"  Brabeck-Letmathe offers a qualified affirmative answer, and one of those qualifications is one that I know will trouble many.  I refer here to his comments on genetically modified crops:

What's harder for him to understand is that Europe's policies effectively forbid poor countries in places like Africa from using genetically modified seed. These countries, he says, urgently need the technology to increase yields and productivity in their backward agricultural sectors. But if they plant GMOs, then under Europe's rules the EU "will not allow you to export anything—anything. Not just the [crop] that has GMO—anything," because of European fears about cross-contamination and almost impossibly strict purity standards. The European fear of genetically modified crops is, he says, "purely emotional. It's becoming almost a religious belief."
This makes Mr. Brabeck-Letmathe, a jovial man with a quick smile, get emotional himself. "How many people," he asks with a touch of irritation, "have died from food contamination from organic products, and how many people have died from GMO products?" He answers his own question: "None from GMO. And I don't have to ask too long how many people have died just recently from organic," he adds, referring to the e. coli outbreak earlier this year in Europe.

I have to agree with him.  Denying impoverished peoples the opportunity to at least try using GMO crops - which are more productive per unit land area than "regular" crops and organic crops- is unconscionable.  Is it not indeed a kind of vanity to insist that those starving and dying in East Africa do without the benefit of more productive crops?

Comments at FBC Mason, 31 July 2011

I had the opportunity to speak to the congregants of the First Baptist Church of Mason yesterday.  Here is a rough sketch of what I had to say.

Thanks for the opportunity to talk about Harvest Stewards, a project that I have come to think of as my personal  mission.

I have been a gardener for about a dozen years.  Any of you that have a garden or know of someone that has a garden have probably heard someone say -or maybe you've said some version of it yourself- "I have so many zucchini, I just don't know what to do with'em all!".  Or maybe instead of zucchini, it was beans or tomatoes or cucumbers or some other thing.  The idea, in any case, is that even in the small garden plots that folks keep in their back yards, there is often surplus.  And in the last few years, the, "and I just don't know what to do with'em all" part of that refrain has hung heavy in my ears.  And I can't pinpoint the exact instant when the connection was made in my mind to the 25th chapter of the book of Matthew, but it was; and therein lay the seed of a plan to get more people more involved in the ministry of feeding hungry folks in our area.  Let me refresh our memory about that 25th chapter of Matthew...

In that chapter, Jesus tells a parable about the ten virgins and their oil lamps, then the parable about the talents, and the chapter is closed out with a brief exposition of the Final Judgment.  I should like to point out that in one way or another, each of these three sections is in one way or another, about stewardship, about using one's God-given resources for the Kingdom of God.   In particular, in those closing passages of the chapter, Jesus commends the righteous for, among other things, feeding Him when He was hungry.  They then say, "but... we don't remember ever feeding you..."  And as we all recall, Jesus says, "ah, but whenever you fed the hungry, you fed me; whatever you did to the least of these, you did to me".  And so, in March of 2010, it dawned on me that I do know what to do with all that surplus produce, and I incorporated Harvest Stewards as a non-profit LLC - the idea behind it being so utterly simple: grow food and give it away. 

So: last year I started a small garden at my church in Latonia, Kentucky, and I set aside some space at home for growing food that I would give away.  In all, we're talking about approximately 170 square feet of garden space under cultivation. 

Now, one may say, wouldn't it be better to have Kroger or Castellini or some well-landed farmers donate from their ample supplies?  Yeah, it would be better, I suppose.  But remember the parable of the talents: the master gets after that one-talent servant; he doesn't fault him for not managing the talents of the 5- or 2-talent servants.  He says, "good grief, man, you couldn't even be bothered to deposit the money in a simple interest-bearing account?  Get out of here, you're fired"  The point the parable makes is that each of us is accountable for our own stewardship, not that of anyone else, corporate or individual. 

So: last year's gardens yielded 156 pounds of produce, mostly cucumbers, squash, corn, beans and tomatoes.  All of this went to Action Ministries and Fairhaven Rescue Mission, both in Northern Kentucky. 

This year I'm using the same garden at my church in Latonia, and I've set aside a little more space at home for growing donation produce.  A new thing I'm trying this year is a plan I call "drop off and top off", whereby I drop off a specially designed grow box (essentially a large pot with a water reservoir on the bottom) with a willing participant, whose only responsibility is to top off the water, to make sure that the grow box doesn't run dry, and then take the produce to a local food ministry.  My friend Chris, who by the way, lives right here in Mason, does not have a green thumb at all, but he's had great success with the "drop off and top off" scheme.  In the seasons to come, we'll be seeking out more and more stewards who want to help feed hungry folks -no green thumb necessary!  I've put some of my calling cards where you can find them; I'd love to be in touch with anyone who is interested in Harvest Stewards. 

Many thanks to Pastor Bill Mountsier for the chance to speak to the folks at FBC Mason.  I was pleased to hear from several folks afterwards that they would begin donating produce and some even talked about starting a garden at the church.

Seasonal update

This time last year, we had already started our donations to Action Ministries.  This year?  So far, nothing has ripened up enough to donate.  I started a different sort of cucumber this year in my grow box, "Armenian Long" cucumbers.  They're poor producers so far.  Maybe they'll come in like gangbusters later on?  I hope so. 

On the bright side, it looks as if we'll have rhubarb to harvest in a few weeks' time. 

And there will be at least a few cantaloupes too:

They're small now, so I reckon mid-August will be their pick-date. 

The tomatoes are producing, but none are ripe just yet.  Okra plants are coming along slowly, I hope they'll start producing late this month or early next. 

Another positive development is that the beans are doing SO much better this year.  Last season, we got no beans whatsoever. This season, I used a soil inoculant and I suspect that has made the difference.  A long row of beans is just about to start climbing on the garden trellis.  It won't be long before we have a big green wall of protein waiting to be harvested!

Seasonal progress, greening thumbs

The LBC garden is growing nicely.  The beans are shooting right up; hopefully we'll have better luck with them this year than last.  We put in some raspberries and rhubarb, both of which are doing well.  There are flowers on the cantaloupe, too!  Oh, and I mustn't forget the tiny okra seedlings, which I hope will produce as well in the LBC garden as the ones in my own garden did last Summer.  

Elsewhere -yes, we do have an elsewhere this year!- things are progressing nicely as well.  Up in Mason, Ohio, at the home of my good buddy Chris, we're trying out the "fire and forget" concept, whereby I drop off a grow-box (of, in this case, zucchini and cucumbers) and the single instruction to not let the water reservoir run dry.  So far, it looks like I've been able to make a gardener out of my friend:

LBC Garden Starts again!

I spent a little bit of time a few nights ago working on the garden at Latonia Baptist Church. The weeds had begun to assert themselves, and the clayey "soil" had hardened despite all the rain we've had of late. some well-rotted straw strewn about and worked into the soil and I think we're off to a good start. Here's what it looks like right now:

And here's a slightly better look at the tomatoes I planted (in the bottom right of the picture above):