Sparks in the Soil

One Year of Sparks

I'm celebrating today, because it's the one-year anniversary of the start of this blog, Sparks in the Soil. 

There have been times when I've stepped away from the blog, felt deserted by the garden, or just generally pulled away from the things that inspire and excite me.  But as I look back, I can see that on this site I've started a genuine journey, expanded my garden knowledge and inspiration alike.  In this one short year, I have actually managed to:

• Eat enough produce to keep 500 worms alive, fed, reproducing, and, um, "processing."
• Try a failed garden experiment, but have fun trying.
• Clone my favorite climbing roses.
• Be surprised by a plant I've been growing for years.
• Learn how to tell how fresh supermarket eggs are...and discover a secret treasure-house to supply us with the just-laid, ultra-fresh variety.
• Connect with and interview some truly spiritual gardeners (Stephen Bartlett! Terry Golson! Candy Evans & Lori Robbins!).
• Grow something green and tasty in my kitchen in the middle of February.

• Start dreaming of next year's garden, on my new piece of God's earth.

What's next?  I have no idea.  And wow do I love that.

(image via: http://www.villainouscompany.com)

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Reinventing Sparks

I started this blog on January 12, 2009, in the dead of winter when spring taunted from the distant future and my teeming summer vegetable garden sighed from the distant past.

It was "project-launching-mode" time, and I dreamed of a beautiful, uplifting, smart book about spiritual gardening, faith-based farming, and the kind of meaning that can be found only in the dirt under our fingernails.  This blog would be the seed of my book, the hub of a sparkling conversation about gardening and growing as a spiritual practice.

In my very first post, I wrote, "I am excited about this beginning because it's been awhile since I've had one.  I don't know what's coming next.  And man, do I love that.  It's time."

Now it's 10 months later.  This is my 131st post, and I've had 98 comments. But my book proposal languishes half-finished.  A drenchingly rainy summer, a mid-season move to a new house, a "real job," and a slew of personal problems conspired against my ability to grow any significant food of my own.  And those same aforementioned ills downshifted the blog into periodic-posting-land.  Sigh.

We're officially into harvest time, my favorite season. Harvest is, when you think about it, the celebration of an ending--the end of the growing season.  But every ending is also a beginning (unless you believe the trailer for the new 2012 movie....but that's for another day).  So, readers, I say again:  "I am excited about this beginning because it's been awhile since I've had one. I don't know what's coming next.  And man, do I love that.  It's time."

I'm reinventing this blog to be about a broader concept of Sparks in the Soil.  Only the soil is not mere dirt, it's the fertile stuff of my life.  Like you, I'm searching for meaning....everywhere.  In my garden, but that's a gimme.  Also in the pool at my aquacize class, in the grocery store and in my kitchen, on the web, in my neighborhood, in yoga, and at work. 

As I wrote back in January, "Soil is a beautiful mystery.... It produces wonderful things when it's in balance."  So can we, especially if we look hard enough for the sparks that lie buried in what looks at first glance like mere dirt.

The sun is rising.  Can you see the sparks?  More to come.

New Veggie-Sharing Website

Thanks to my friend Lisa for sharing VeggieTrader.com with me!  This is a brand-new site with a brilliant, simple premise:  when neighbors grow food and share it, communities come together, people eat better, and some might even make a little green for their greens.

Through the site, you can post whatever's in excess in your garden and trade--or sell--it to eager folks in your area. 

Got too much mint but not enough dill?  Too much zucchini but not enough cucumbers? Maybe your neighbor has basil and cucumbers out the wazoo, and was wondering just how many pickles he could put up in one summer.  And maybe that same neighbor was hoping to sip on some minted iced tea while grilling some zucchini to go with his dinner.  You never know until you connect....

A word of warning--the site is just getting started, and there are very few listings (none in my zip code, my parents' in Maryland, or even in--what?--San Francisco).  But why not support this exciting, innovative venture by posting a listing of your own?  If I had anything in abundance happening in my garden at the moment, I certainly would....

Click here to visit VeggieTrader.com.

Celebrating Sparks' 101st Post!

This, I'm happy to announce, is Sparks in the Soil's 101st post!

At this milestone, I'm reflecting on everything that's happened since I started the blog on January 12.  The winter blew through and melted away.  Spring crept in slowly but is now in full burst.  The First Lady planted a vegetable garden at the White House.  And church after church after church has broken ground for vegetable gardens that will feed the hungry--and nourish their spirits. 

As for the question that guides this blog - what would happen if every house of worship committed to growing food in some form? - I admit to still being far from anything approaching an answer.  But seeds have been sown....and the journey is moving forward.

Here are some of my favorite posts from the journey so far.  Thanks for reading!

How to Green Your Church Lawn

Interview: Stephen Bartlett, Spiritual Gardener

An Illustrated Guide to Setting up a Worm Composter

Eggs and the Birds that Make Them

Gardens in the Bible: Eden

Video: Inspiring Front Yard Gardeners

From CBS News, a perfect Earth Day video about Dervaes family in Pasadena, California - one of the many who have turned their front lawns into teeming vegetable gardens.  They produce so much on their 1/10-acre lawn that they subsist entirely on it (oh, to live in California!), only purchasing flour and rice.

Thanks go out to the North City Community Garden in Lynden, Washington for the blogroll link!  Be sure to check out their website (which is where I found the video), they're really walking the talk about urban and community gardening.

Fun with Wordle

I wanted to see what my blog would look like as a Wordle cloud.  It turns out, yes, we have BANANAS!

Email Subscription is Here!

I finally figured out how to set up email subscription as well as reader subscription through FeedBurner.  So please sign up so you can receive each new post!

Click here for the reader feed, or sign up for the email feed from the right side of the homepage.

Thanks!

My Tiny Choices Survey

Thanks to Jenn over at Tiny Choices for inviting me to participate in her ongoing environmental survey.

Here is, of course, how I answered the question, "What is the one environmental Tiny Choice you would like every single person to adopt?"

"I would like every person to grow food in some form.  It can be a pot of herbs, a container-tomato garden, or a full-fledged “dig up your lawn” kind of thing.  But I think we’re never more connected than when we can walk outside and come back in again with salad.  Or a side dish.  Or a garnish.  Or dinner."

Click here to read my full survey, or to take the survey yourself.

Top 100 Organic Living Blogs

I'm joyfully overwhelmed with the goodies on this list!  I immediately discovered this tip about using lavender and rosemary essential oil on my hairbrush, oooooh.  And the brilliant Organic Gardening magazine is #5 (what and how to prune in winter!).

I have to say I'm slightly confused by the list's source.  It appears to be a health blog that lives on a "radiology school resource" website. Whatever that is.  In any event, there are many new blogs on the list that I'm looking forward to discovering!

An Afternoon Among the Hens

I've written before about Terry Golson, a writer and hen-keeper who I met at an egg-themed cooking class not too long ago.  Her fabulous website, hencam.com, is a living picture of Terry's happy backyard hens, and her children's book "Tillie Lays an Egg" is an adorable read.  People write to Terry from all over the world to ask questions about their own backyard chickens. This weekend, I got a huge treat when she kindly invited me to her beautiful home in rural(ish) Carlisle, MA so I could meet the flock she calls her "girls."

I know it's very "city mouse" of me, but I can't ever remember being in the presence of real, live laying hens, and it was exciting, in a "I eat things that come from these creatures - I even eat these creatures" kind of way.  Just look at these majestic, beady-eyed lovelies:

Terry says that raising hens is "trendy in a good way" because "people are trying to connect what they eat and where it comes from." She's not overtly spiritual about her birds, but she said something that really connected for me.  She was talking about her relationship with her birds, and how she does right by them in exchange for their providing her and her family with fresh eggs--and the web with very cubicle-friendly entertainment. 

She said, "Farmers have a covenant with these animals. You have this agreement that you give them good lives and you get something back. They don't exist without us."

"Covenant" is such a weighty theological concept, so sacred, so fundamental to how many of us experience our religious faith.  I thought it was beautifully applied to how we care for animals that live under our care.

Click "continue" below for more pictures and to read more henny fun facts I learned at Terry's.  Also, check out my interview with Terry in the post below.