p_mac(7),

Thank you. We are trying to set an example.

The food pictured above all went to the food bank in Mulhall Oklahoma. They are helping 17 families there. That is why it is shown in 17 separate piles. No, that is not all of the food that came out of those raised rows.

Many folks here (Garden Web) have been instrumental in our efforts, especially Dawn. One of the recipients of our potatoes wants to start a garden. We have already found land for them bordering the church property. We plan to create the new garden for them this Fall.

We will have more opportunities to help. I just planted 4,000 feet of Aztec white corn "Dia De San Juan." Also, I just planted 2,000 feet of PEPH peas. We will allow folks to pick both for a donation in return. They can donate money or some of what they pick.

Our goal is to improve the quality of food consumed by the very young and the very old.

We hope to give a few more canning classes this year too.

Vision Farms, Inc (a nonprofit corporation)

Johnny - Thank you for the kind deeds you are doing and the help you are providing others. The recipient who is wanting to start a garden probably would not have reached this decision without someone (you and your group) showing them what can be done with just some soil, seeds, water, time, garden hoe and determination. Wish there were more people like you and some of the others here on this forum.

gmatx,

Thank you. We still have a long way to go. Wish us luck.

Johnny, That's terrific! I am glad things are going so well. Despite a ridiculous amount of rainfall this year (49" at our house, and that's only in the first half of the year, which would be scary were it not for the fact that we get almost no rainfall at all in many summers so I doubt that number will go up much over the next few weeks), I actually lost very little of the garden plants to the rain. Onions suffered more than most other things despite being in a raised bed at the highest part of the sloping garden, but we still got plenty.

The work you are doing is so vitally important and I am so proud of everything y'all have accomplished and continue to accomplish. I am sure that the people who get food through the food banks y'all support are exceedingly grateful. You know that if I lived closer to your farm, I'd be there as often as I possibly could in order to help with the weeding and harvesting.

I hope more families become inspired by having fresh vegetables and become gardeners themselves. With you to inspire them and to teach them what to do and how to do it, I believe that will happen. Keep up the great work!!!

Do you remember when George H. W. Bush was President and had his 1000 points of light program where he recognized people and organizations who were volunteering and making a difference in this country? I suppose that was in the 1980s? Well, I remember it, and you, sir, and Vision Farms are one of those points of light!

Dawn

Dawn,

Thank you. Your support and advice have been instrumental in our success.

We hope to be able to hire an intern next year. I would prefer to hire someone who wants to grow food professionally and who has some desire to teach others to grow. Please feel free to refer candidates for internship at Vision Farms, Inc.

We are consulting with a Middle School in Edmond on their first venture at growing food. I have received some interesting feed back from the teachers and administrators. They listen intently and ask good, pointed questions. There seems to be a yearning in our society for a return to the land and things they can touch. However, their families have failed to hand down the necessary skills. I am constantly amazed at the level of ignorance.

While planting sweet potato slips, one of the middle school kids said "this is the most fun I have had all summer" We were all so pleased to hear that, we grinned for days.

Maybe the Kerr Center can recommend someone for our intern position. I can guarantee they will learn a lot in the first year. I have learned a lot the last few years and I'm sure I have a long way to go.

Johnny
Vision Farms, Inc.

I'd appreciate seeing your farm sometime, Johnny.

cochiseinokc,

We need to brush hog the 12th Street garden. Wanna help? I'll teach you to operate our tractor.

Johnny

Dawn,
We are thinking about growing our own mulch starting this Fall by planting all extra space with cereal rye. Please share your thoughts on this idea.
Johnny

Johnny, You're welcome. When you first started posting here and asking questions, I had no idea whatsover that you were going to be growing on such a large scale. I'm amazed at how much y'all plant and then how much you harvest, and then of course, it is all for a great cause. I truly believe you are changing people's lives.

Like you, I am astounded at how much practical knowledge is vanishing nowadays. So many people grow up on convenience foods that the art of harvesting raw vegetables from the garden and then preparing a meal from them seems endangered at times, as does standard food processing for long-term storage. I hope y'all are able to reach lots of folks with your canning lessons. I bet every single person who shows up and learns how to can will end up becoming canners themselves. I know that many times we have had people turn down fresh veggies we offered them because they didn't know how to cook squash or okra or whatever from scratch, and weren't even interested in learning. It is much the same with herbs. Fresh herbs seem to confuse folks who only have used dried herbs sprinkled out of bottles. That blows my mind.

I love the resurgence of eating locally that has been occurring in the last decade. It is great to see people who not only want to raise and eat their own veggies, fruits and herbs, but who also are learning how to bake bread, make yogurt and cheese, and even have their own beehives for their own honey.

Hmmm. Wouldn't it be great if Vision Farms someday has their own bee hives? You'd have a guaranteed source of pollinators and then would get honey on top of that.

Do y'all grow watermelons? Sugar Baby and other icebox watermelons have absolutely enthralled every child who visits my garden, often requiring return visits weekly so they can find the ripe melons, harvest them and take them home. The icebox melons are perfect because they mature relatively quickly, and I haven't had problems with coyotes getting my melons (a common problem for my friend, Fred, when he grew his melons on the old home place close to the river), likely because the garden is fenced. I don't know if you could get a melon crop there in a garden that is pretty much wide open to hungry wildlife.

I hope y'all can find a great intern who will become an important part of the work you do and who can learn by doing, which is my favorite way to teach someone how to do something, and then pass on that learning. If the Kerr Center cannot help you find an intern, maybe the Noble Foundation (headquartered in Ardmore) could.

Dawn

Dawn,
The 1/2 acre I amended with manure and sand is growing watermelons like weeds. We used a 50hp JD tractor with a 6 foot tiller to mix the sand, composted manure and clay. That is where the watermelons are. Happy, happy happy!

We ave two populated hives and we are waiting for one more swarm. Honey bees LOVE PEPH peas. The nectar makes them drunk.

Johnny

Johnny, I am thrilled to hear you planted watermelons and that they are doing so well. A watermelon fresh from the garden is one of the true joys of summertime! It is astounding how many friends come out of the woodwork when a gardener has fresh watermelons at harvest time.

I'm also glad you have the bee hives. I am laughing at your comment about bees and PEPH peas. That is so true. I have a friend who won't step foot in my garden when the PEPH peas are blooming because she is terrified of all the bees, yellow jackets and wasps that are working the blooms.

Have you ever made PEPH jelly? It is a great way to get an unexpected edible food product from a part of the PEPH plant that generally just gets discarded and thrown onto the compost pile. I'll link the recipe below. The jelly is purple and, oddly, almost smells like grape jelly (unless I am imagining that part).

Dawn

Here's the link for jelly made from the hulls of PEPHs.

Recipe: Pink Eye Purple Hull Pea Jelly

Dawn,
Last year, a couple of my 6 year old neighbors helped me pick peas. I was working around and under the various flying insects. Those little girls didn't think a thing about working just the way I did. I guess most of our fears are learned.
The closest I have ever gotten to being stung (on three continents) is when mud daubers and wasps fly into my chest or forehead to tell me I'm too close to their nest.
Reminds me of the commercial where the personal trainer smacks the forehead of her client.

Thanks for the recipe.

Johnny

Johnny, You're welcome. It is a great recipe. My father's family were subsistence farmers (sharecroppers, in fact) during the Great Depression and learned not to waste any plant part that could be used as food, including pea hulls and foraged food like lambs quarters and poke salad. My aunts could make a meal out of virtually anything and practically nothing all at the same time, even long after those hard years had ended, they had moved to the city, and had both financial security and food security. One of my aunts always made her own brown sugar by browning white sugar in a cast iron skillet because she didn't see any point in buying brown sugar if she had white sugar. The frugality and resourcefulness learned as youths during the Great Depression stayed with them all their lives, and they passed it down to us kids too.

That recipe can be used with the hulls from any sort of southern peas, including cream peas, lady peas and zipper peas. Different kinds of pea hulls give different colors (I think the purple from the PEPHs is the prettiest by far) and different flavors.

I agree fears are learned. Wasps are so bad here this year that they've even been trying to build nests on our driveway gate. Hmmm. I cannot image they enjoy it when we open and close the gate. They stung two people at the gate on Saturday. I hope it is not about to be time to declare war on the gate wasps. Do they not have any sense at all? Mud daubers are a nuisance but I try to ignore them, and all wasps, since they are beneficial insects otherwise.

I've only been stung once by a wasp this year. I was in the garden harvesting snap peas growing on a trellis. A wasp flew by me, passing behind my back, flew another 20' or so, then turned around (I was watching it with my peripheral vision), came back and stung me in the back. I was not a particularly happy camper and never found a nest nearby. Tim ran over a nest of ground wasps while mowing one day about 5 or 6 years ago and they came after him with a vengeance, attacking him and the riding lawnmower. He was covered in stings. As far as we knew, he was not allergic to wasp stings but we made a quick run to the doctor's office anyway since there were so many stings on his body and the doctor gave him a shot and a prescription. He hasn't been stung since.

I always have tons of insects in the garden that could sting me but they rarely do, so I hope my luck holds for the rest of the summer. I do give yellow jackets a wide berth when I see them as they seem most likely to get all excited over nothing and to start stinging.

Dawn