"Foster Farms"

Today my garden is speaking to me and it's got rich meaningful things to tell me.

Lessons about hope, new life sprouting up, the patience of waiting for fruit to be produced.

These little guys that look like Christmas lights are popping all over the plant and it's one of the most fun things to check for when I get up in the morning. Does my heart foster the best environment for new ideas, gifts and ministries to bud like these shiny little green "light bulbs" that will be juicy tart lemons soon.

I noticed the words "FOSTER FARMS" on one of my milk crates. When I water our garden I reflect on the soil of my heart, ask the questions about what containers in my heart are being nurtured and which ones have I let go, and I pray over my gardens both the one in the pictures and the one that is my heart. I pray that the garden of my heart is bearing prolific fruit, blossoming and that new buds are popping up. 

So I love this milk crate.

It reminds me to ask

"What AM I fostering in my life?"

I hope that I am fostering healthy vibrant things that nurture and satisfy others,

like this gorgeous lettuce.

This small container of lettuce was bursting this afternoon. I was able to make this salad with it's beautiful leaves that fed my whole family. It's such a mirror of what I desire for my life, relationships, family and talents. Good fruit that feeds and nurtures the people around me.

I hope to have a fragrance that attracts people to the Creator of Life, like the fragrance of this beautiful Lemon Thyme.

Or this fabulous Pineapple Sage! 

I can't tell you how sweet it smells and it just seems to get better and better.

Or the fragrance of this gorgeous Basil or the deep rich color of it's cousin Purple Basil, 

their aroma is fantastic!

With little effort and fostering this Purple Kale is going to give me ridiculous abundance and it's going to power up my morning smoothies in a glorious way. Little effort and great results. There are parts of my heart that take little effort to get results and of course there are the areas, like parenting, that take tremendous fostering, nurture, weeding, pruning, and lots of hard work over time, but have the potential to feed the world in ways that I could not do alone. 

Are there parts of my heart that need rest? After last week I can give an enthusiastic YES to rest and refreshment. It will come.

My back yard garden has good organic soil, plant food, faithful watering, weeding, and lots of love. Ah! And Bandit's supervision. My heart needs love, prayer, forgiveness, honesty, faith, meditation, and just as careful attention. Sometimes I move things around in my garden-like my basil that benefits a little by the shade the tomato plants are providing in the afternoon. What relationships in my life am I surrounded by? Are all my relationships symbiotic or do some need to be moved to the other side of the yard or worse-uprooted? The garden has all of these lessons waiting here for me.

Is my garden healthy enough that it draws people in?

Just a moment to reflect on "fostering". 

It's simple, I know.

I had a very emotionally challenging week last week, grieving with a friend experiencing tremendous and tragic loss, my mother and brother in and out of hospitals on opposite ends of the earth as it seemed, difficult conversations, mixed with the emotional highs of getting to serve with Father's House Vacaville's Adopt-a-Block for the first time, graduating my baby from the 8th grade, ending my long stretch of homeschooling, and saying "good-bye" to the program that kept me in the game of homeschooling since my kids were wee little. The last yearbook Calli and I make together, the last class party.... Life is filled with lows and highs and oddly I am grateful for them both. Reflecting on how I foster the areas of my heart today, will determine how I am able to walk through the highs and lows that come tomorrow. 

Moms, Milk Crates, Pots & Plants

Best Mother's Day EVER! It actually started Saturday night when I jumped in the car and thought I was in the wrong one! TrueLove and Jake had washed, vacuumed and white gloved the whole thing. No more coffee stains in the cup holders, receipts, or lipglosses sliding around. Pure magic! 

That was the rose TrueLove clipped and put in a vase for me. Awe.

Then we went to Gather in Berkeley for a farm to table brunch, now our third year tradition. Jake took this adorable picture of Calli and I. TrueLove couldn't be in it because he couldn't pose without photo-bombing our own picture. Then we did our ritual meandering on Fourth Street. Then we scooted off to Richmond to pick out more edibles for our garden at Annies Annuals. Such fun! Then we took roses to my mom at Kaiser Walnut Creek and cheered her up a bit. Poor thing, stuck in there on Mother's Day! Then we came home and feverishly planted! 

So I promised a how-to for my lovely friend Carol on how to set up the milk crate gardens. She wants to put them on a second level balcony to keep away from the deer that terrorize plant life in her neighborhood. It is very simple! My daughter took the pictures with my feisty camera that has been acting up, so please forgive the poor quality, but I didn't want to keep Carol waiting since we are already in May and she has gardening to get done. Here goes the recipe!

Ingredients:
Milk Crates
Landscaper's Fabric
Chalk
Scizzors
Stapler (or sewing machine)
Staple Gun
And of course, dirt and plants

1) Trace your crate with chalk. I like to get close to the edge to conserve fabric.

I just start on one side and then move the crate to trace the bottom and the other side to minimize cutting. You'll see.

So I like to trace the center lining and one side. You need 5 squares all together. Since my fabric isn't wide enough, I just do the fifth one alone. 

2) Cut it out on along the perimeters.

3) Now you just staple it. If you are a seamstress, then forget all of this and sew those sides up. It will be faster, you just need to stay close to the chalk marks unless you apply your skills and make seam allowances. This is not a science, it's very rough. I usually start with the biggest piece and staple three sides together. When stapling a side, I start in the middle and work out to the edges and stay very close to my chalk lines. I do the single square side last. The next picture is to demonstrate that it doesn't need to be perfect by any means, just good enough to keep dirt and water in.

4) Admire you're workmanship.....

and then tuck it into your milk crate.

5) The 5th step is to use the staple gun to attach the liner to the actual crate. 

6) Pour your dirt.

7) Put your plants in. Here are the basil plants I planted a few weeks ago. 

If you didn't see my post Urban Gardening, I chose to use the milk crates because I don't have space for a garden. The milk crates are easy to come by, you can easily move them around for better sun or shade exposure, use on upper levels (thank you Carol!) and they are easy on your back when planting. If you are new to my blog, I am NOT a gardener. This is my first EVER experience and I'm going on the fly. TrueLove knows a lot but he's letting me do this so I can learn. Some friends asked how my garden was going so I thought I'd add some more pics.

Milk crates and pots, just mixing it up so I can grow what I can in while our back yard is undeveloped. The fun of gardening does not need to wait for a perfect yard to be built. I can not tell you how fun it is to already be using my own herbs. If I can do it, anyone can!