Gardens rooted in faith feed the hungry
By Lauren Blanchard Published May 21, 2014 FoxNews.com

West Des Moines, IA –  They’re small town gardens with a big purpose: to feed local families who can’t afford fresh produce.

These “faith-gardens” are popping up all over town, with churches starting them but then relying on volunteers to take care of the plants.

One, the Faith and Grace Garden, was planted in between two churches, St. Timothy’s Episcopal Church and Covenant Presbyterian Church. It started out as a small patch over 15 years ago, but now takes up a whole plot of land.

The garden coordinator, Tim Goldman, said they usually have more volunteers than they have jobs in the garden. He believes that is because people feel a special connection when they’re working with the soil.

“We generally think that if you bring people out into creation, that they will feel closer to God,” said Goldman.
Click here to read the entire story

Thanks again to everyone who was able to attend the “It’s Almost Spring” meeting last Sunday, February 16^th. A lot of information was shared!

Click these links to download:
Meeting notes from Dr. Jennifer Thompson’s volunteer management training
Garden Donation Tip Sheet
Attendee listing with email addresses
Free Seed resource listing
Trees Forever Resource Listing
Cultivate Iowa Spring into Action event – Tuesday, March 11^th

We look forward to hearing more about your gardens and what we can do to support your work!
Aubrey Martinez, MPA
Director – Eat Greater Des Moines
515-491-1891
amartinez@dmreligious.org

We’ve Moved!
Des Moines Area Religious Council (DMARC)
1435 Mulberry Street
Des Moines, IA 50309 

www.eatgreaterdesmoines.org      www.dmreligious.org      www.movethefood.org

Moulton School – Garden Clean-Up, Tues, October 22, 9 -11 am

Please come out next Tuesday if you can lend a hand at Moulton School with their garden clean-up.
For more information, please contact Susan Rushing at:  susan.rushing@dmschools.org

Fall Chores in the Garden – Today, 3pm – Help Wanted!
Come out and enjoy the crisp fall weather this afternoon in the Faith & Grace Garden. Your help for 45 minutes or an hour will go a long way to help feed hungry local people!
We will be harvesting and getting the garden ready for winter.

Here’s our production to date:

The Faith & Grace Garden is located between 24th Street and 28th Street on the north side of Ashworth Roard in West Des Moines. For more information call Tim Goldman at 745-9842 or reply to this message.

See you in the Garden!
Tim & Mark

Name That Vegetable Contest – 2013 Edition

We have a winner! Zac Couture’s winning entry for the Name That Vegetable Contest came shortly after last week’s message was sent out –  about 11:30pm (possibly Zac was doing late night duty taking care of 7-month old baby son Oliver….).

Zac wins this year’s prize:

Plants of the Bible playing cards are beautifully illustrated and just the thing for your next game of rummy! I received a deck from a friend this summer and look forward to playing with them all winter.

Many of you recognized that the mystery vegetable was Lamb’s Quarters. I think Susan Sides of the Lord’s Acre garden in Fayette, NC, summed up the attraction of Lamb’s Quarters best when she called it “the new kale.” Look for it soon on the menu at an upscale restaurant. Use it in any recipe that calls for spinach or Susan says just sauté it in olive oil with garlic.

Information about Lamb’s Quarters from Illinois Wildflowers

Comments: Lamb’s Quarters is often dismissed as a mere weed, but it is an important source of food and cover to many kinds of insects and birds. The young leaves and stems can be added to salads (the taste is rather bland and dull), or they can be boiled as a potherb. Some tribes of Amerindians reportedly ground the seeds into flour. Lamb’s Quarters have been the subject of taxonomic disputes among botanists. Some authorities consider Lamb’s Quarters to be a variable species with numerous varieties, while others view these varieties as separate species. To correctly identify a Chenopodium sp. (Goosefoot), several features should be taken into consideration. Lamb’s Quarters has: 1) horizontal seeds (relative to the position of the flowers), 2) foliage that is mealy white while young, 3) a calyx with a mealy appearance that nearly encloses the seed, 4) a membranous seed covering that is difficult to remove, and 5) rather broad leaves with margins that are undulate, slightly lobed, or dentate, rather than smooth. These five features, when they are taken together, distinguish Lamb’s Quarters from most Goosefoot species. Plants with largely glabrous leaves on the undersides are often classified asChenopodium album missouriense (Missouri Lamb’s Quarters), while the typical variety has leaves with white mealy undersides. Mohlenbrock (2001) considers Missouri Lamb’s Quarters to be a separate species,Chenopodium missouriense.

(Big thank you to Jo Anna Hebberger, PhD. for sending me such helpful information about Lamb’s Quarters.)

Below is the Entrepreneurial Studies class from Dowling Catholic High School with teacher, Tracy Sandebothe.

Below are our garden production and donation totals through September 3:

The Faith & Grace Garden is located between 24^th & 28^th Streets north of Ashworth Road, WDM, by Covenant Presbyterian Church and St. Timothy’s Episcopal Church.For more information contact Tim at timothyjgoldman@gmil.com or call 745-9842 or contact Mark at wdmmarshall@msn.com or call 988-5381.

See you in the garden!
Tim

Growing Friendships in the Faith & Grace Garden

On Thursday mornings from May through September, the Faith & Grace Garden is filled with laughing, talking, and singing as 10 – 12 refugees from Burma, also known as Myanmar, spend time together working in the garden. Our new friends, who are all 60+ years old, were farmers in their homeland and love gardening now that they are living in Iowa.  Their path to Iowa was not an easy one. After our Burmese friends fled ethnic cleansing and oppression in their native land, they endured years of living in a crowded Vietnamese refugee camp. Life in the USA began in East St. Louis. There the refugees were robbed and heard gunfire all around them at night. The refugees said, “If we stay here we will die.” So they left suddenly under the cover of darkness and came north, and finally settled in Des Moines. Life is better now, especially when they can leave their apartments and work with their hands in the soil again.

Lutheran Services of Iowa (LSI) is our wonderful partner in this project and provides program coordination, a meeting place for the refugees, and a helpful language interpreter.

As we have worked with our Burmese friends over the summer we have learned much about their culture and community. They have taught us about new ways to garden and about new foods and how to prepare them.

We want to thank the many garden volunteers who greet and host our friends or transport them to and from the garden on Thursday mornings:

Faye Akers, 10:30am driver
Bev Blaha,  garden host
John Bloom, 8am driver
John Eft,  back-up driver
Celeste Egger, 10:30am driver
Ambre Grund,  back-up driver
John Kibet,  garden host/8 am driver
Susan Pohl,  garden host
Katie Ryan,  LSI contact & program coordinator
Karen Voss,  host gardener, back-up driver
The gardeners take home vegetables for their families at the end of the morning on Thursday.
Here’s list of garden production and donations through August 19:

Units in Lbs
Peas 75 Bush Beans 125 Pole Beans 75 Broccoli 10 Cabbage 48 Cucumbers 63 Lettuce 275 Strawberries 52 Okra 24 Onions 674 Tomatoes 601 Purslane 42 Peppers 5 Cantalope 4 Watermelon 168 Zucchini 95 White Potatoes 1,000 Radishes 335 Turnips 20
Total Harvested 3,691

DMARC 114
Trinity 2,095
Lutheran Social Services 295
Family Violence Shelter 25
Catholic Workers 150
Cottage Grove Pres 100
WDM Human Services 912
Total Donated 3,691

Volunteer hours in the Faith & Grace Garden are M – F, 6:30pm – 8:30pm. If you have any questions about the garden, please contact Tim Goldman at timothyjgoldman@gmail.com or by calling 745-9842, Mark Marshall atwdmmarshall@msn.com or by calling 988-5381 or John Eft atsomeassembly98@aol.com or by calling 491-0422.

TreeKeepers Update from Trees Forever

Interested in learning more about how to take care of the trees in your backyard, your neighborhood, and the entire community? Trees Forever is hosting TreeKeepers  in the Des Moines metro area on Saturday, October 5. TreeKeepers is a volunteer training program designed to teach the basics of tree care such as proper planting, tree care, tree biology, benefits of trees, and much more. Trained volunteers are the eyes and ears for our community’s trees. Join over 60 Des Moines-area  TreeKeepers who are already speaking for the trees. {Editor’s note: I can tell you from personal experience, this is a wonderful program and the training is first rate. Tim}

BE WATCHING NEXT WEEK FOR OUR THIRD ANNUAL ‘NAME THAT VEGETABLE CONTEST – THIS YEAR YOU COULD BE OUR BIG WINNER!

**********Links of interest from our friends at The Lord’s Acre******************

Check out The Bug Files and more at Dave’s Garden

FOOD SLEUTH RADIO – Helping People Think Beyond Their Plates. Great interviews with those in the forefront of the food movement are recorded and posted here  on Public Radio Exchange for your convenience and enjoyment. If you like what you hear, please forward a link to your local community and public radio stations.  Food Sleuth Radio is available and aired on community and public radio stations nationwide via Pacifica and Public Radio Exchange. Here it is   on iTunes.

This video – What Plants Talk About  – came to us this week from friends at the Organic Grower’s School as “Highly Recommended”. I confess, we haven’t watched it yet but with the rain that is coming, it looks like a great rainy day activity.  ”When we think about plants, we don’t often associate a term like “behavior” with them, but experimental plant ecologist JC Cahill wants to change that. The University of Alberta professor maintains that plants do behave and lead anything but solitary and sedentary lives. What Plants Talk About teaches us all that plants are “smarter” and much more interactive than we thought!”

FREE Webinar #1: HOW TO TEACH COOKING TO KIDS

Aug 27, 2-3:30pm Centrl is an introductory webinar that will enable you to combine your love of cooking and teaching kids into a marketable skill. Taught by nutritionist and wellness expert, Julie Negrin. All you need is a phone and access to the internet!  Julie Negrin , MS.  NOTE: Recording of webinar available to all registrants. For more info and to  TO REGISTER for this webinar, go here

You’ll learn:

• The three biggest mistakes people make when creating a cooking program and how to avoid them.
• The five questions you MUST be able to answer before deciding on menus for your classes.
• The bare bones cooking equipment you need to teach cooking to kids in any classroom.
• The best recipes to introduce to new students and which recipes to avoid when your students are still learning to trust you.
• How to get the ball rolling with your own cooking classes and/or program when you have no idea where to start

See you in the garden!
Tim