Gardening for Life

By Wayne & Connie Burleson

“Planting seeds for those in need”

Saddleback Church PEACE Plan … teaching module

 Saddleback Class Outline
• Introduction WHY GARDENS?
• Soils/compost (the foundation to success)
• Garden construction/garden location/raised beds
• Planting/plant spacing
• Garden care: water, weeds, ownership
• Which vegetable to plant
• Vegetable harvest and replanting
• Seed saving techniques
• Sharing the harvest and teaching others
• Why pray over the gardens?
• Training trainers, building passport: trust, caring, & needed education
• Closing YOU CAN DO IT! Planting seeds for those in need
 What is the real PURPOSE
behind teaching people
how to grow their own food?
To bring hope, health, and healing to those in need
 Introduction WHY GARDENS?
… Planting seeds for those in need …

• Small gardens are very easy to assemble and they draw crowds
• Simple. Anyone can do it. Anywhere in the world
• Requires very little water (safe to use waste water)
• Gardens are constructed without money or commercial fertilizers
• Very easy to take care of (less work, less weeds, less water, more food)
• Highly productive from very small spaces
• Can produce 45 kilos (100 pounds) of food from a 4’ X 4’ area
• Each home can construct several of these handy small kitchen gardens
• Potential - Literally help feed millions of people
• Also an evangelistic outreach – presents an opportunity to share the Good
News
• Empty stomachs have no ears
These gardens are sustainable, long-term hand-up endeavors,
not a hand-out
Photos help
teach in any
language
 Success in Africa
A Church Demonstration Garden
Small Village in Rwanda, Africa

Growth in 61 days
Good results motivates
a can-do attitude
Step #1 Soils/compost (the foundation to success)
How to make your own Top Soil
Go On a Treasure Hunt - Searching for Hidden Resources

Step 1 Walk-about looking for:

•Old dry livestock dung (sheep, cow, horse, donkey)
•Leave mold
•Black looking top soil under bushes
•Old dry chicken manure
•Anything looking like dark soil
Step 2 Dig up sod from garden plot 1.3 meter by 3 meters,
and then remove old plants and roots from plot

African Cow House

= decomposed
organic matter
Dig up soil under
old manure and mix
with native soil
which makes great
topsoil
 How to Make Good Compost
Ingredients needed: Why compost? Compost is decomposed organic matter
that has turned into black colored humus that is called
“BLACK GOLD.” Compost makes excellent organic
plant food. Millions of micro-organisms digest (eat) the dry
grass and green grass causing the pile to heat up. Compost
does not feed the plants directly. Instead it feeds the soil
microbes which in turn release insoluble minerals for the
plants to feed upon (fertilizers). This amazing process makes
your garden a sustainable food factory - if you keep adding
compost to your soils.

Add Water to pile when dry

Repeat all layers until 1Meter

high, turn and mix in 2 weeks
Add small amount of wood ash
Add water to dry layers 
Vegetable waste ------
Thin layer old manure -
Thin layer top soil-----
Green grass 30 cm ---
Dry grass 30 cm----
Bottom layer small sticks or maze
(corn stocks) for air ->
Step #2 Garden Construction; Garden location; Raised beds

2.64 Meters

1.32
Meters
 How to Plan & Build a Food Factory Garden
2 to 5 Meters in length

1.3 Meters

Step 1 Locate an area near your home Step 3 Dig down and remove all the
Step 2 Drive stakes into the ground 1.3 meters
that has full sunlight for most of the day. roots and existing vegetation. Loosen
wide by as long you would like … 2 to 5 meters in
(not under shade trees) the soils with a shovel or hoe. Line the
length. Keep the narrow width so that your hands
outer edge of the box with logs, bricks
can reach the middle squares from the sides of the
Be sure to water or rocks. Fill the area with good top
garden area.
before planting & soil, mix in old livestock manure and
let the garden set The grid planting design came from Square Food
for several days
compost.
Gardening.
to settle the soil.

Mr Brite
Step 4 Using sticks or other material, make a grid
with each square 33 by 33 centimeters. Water the
whole garden area and let set for a few days to
settle the soil. Never step on this garden soil to
prevent compaction. Water the soil & let set for a
day. Now you are ready for planting.
 Step #3 Planting/plant spacing
Plant large
Seeds sideways
Plants germinate easier

Suggestions:
Make labels
for each square,
Also make a map of
each square planting

This helps when

weeding

Why have a grid?

Answer: Correct plant spacing Another reason for a grid?
Answer: You know where the seeds are and
where to place the water
 How to Precisely Plant Your Seeds

Take your time For 1 or 4 plants

and plant each per square make a
seed correctly small dish shaped
for good success depression in the
soil and place the
seeds in the
center. Water only
where the seeds
are located

Mr Brite
16 Plants Mr Brite
30 Plants 9 Plants 4 Plants 1 Plant
Per Per Per Per Per
Square Square Square Square Square

33 cm

33 cm Peas Lettuce These Tomato

Onion Seeds Radishes Pepper
Beets Swiss chard Plants
Green Onions Carrots Broccoli Can also Cabbage
Small Carrots Onion Sets Beans Be started 1.5 cm deep
Marigold from Cucumber
1 to 2 cm deep 2 cm deep Spinach 1.5 cm deep Transplants Cantaloupe
2.5 cm deep 2.5 cm deep
Potato 8 cm deep
 Which vegetables seeds to plant

Tomato
Pepper
Squash
Cucumber
Lettuce
Swiss chard
Radish
Beet
Cabbage
Spinach
Carrots What do you love to eat?
Beans
 Step #4 Garden care:
Water, Weeds, and Ownership
 Limited water available

The wise use of water

A cup of sun warmed water per square

 This lady in Shone, Ethiopia, Africa is a
very good gardener as she knows how to
place precious water on each seed zone.
Efficient use of water saves her hours of
hard labor hauling water to her garden
from miles away.

Use of Re-cycled Water

Ladies washing dishes and clothes in Malawi.

Look where the water is going!

Question:
Could you dump this waste water safely on a small
kitchen garden?
 Why Add Mulch to Your Gardens
Don’t let
your soils
see daylight

Mr Brite
One smart farmer

Cool shaded soils = 22 deg C (72 deg F) = holds water,

adds soil nutrients and slows weed germination
Hot bare soils = 55 deg C (130 deg F) = loss of water through increased evaporation.
Cooks and kills valuable soil microorganisms, no added soil nutrients , & increases weed germination
 Don’t Weed Instead Cultivate

Heat a serrated kitchen knife with a candle flame

and then bend at a 90 degrees angle.
This makes an excellent small garden cultivator tool
Step #5 Vegetable harvest and replanting
Add a scoop of compost and
replant harvested squares
Harvest

One Radish growing in Ethiopia

 One Radish makes
a great salad

Seeking information outside the box

Radish leaves have 3 times the nutrient
value as the roots And taste great!
Think holistically when teaching
From seed to stomach
 A Life Giving Story
Salmon River Pumpkin (A Winter Squash)
From Seed to Seeds
 Take extra garden manuals with you as handouts.
You can buy certain local vegetable seeds in the larger cities – just ask farmers.
Also bring seeds from home. We have been told that when going through customs tell
the agents that these are common vegetable seeds for home use.
 Seed saving techniques
Beets
Cucumber
Biennial as it takes
Let ripen past
two year. Store roots Pumpkin
edible stage and
for several months, Cut ripe & mature
Spinach turn yellow. Cut
Pick out the strong replant to grow pumpkin open.
lengthwise, scoop
plants and let them bolt seeds, harvest seeds Remove seeds.
seeds out seeds
into a flower stalk and when dry. Wash with water.
and dry
go to seed. Pull the seed Place on screen or
stalks out of the ground cloth to dry.
and let dry. Thresh the
seeds into a container.

Pepper
Let ripe to full
Onion color, no sign of
Let a few plants disease.
form round Remove seed
flower clusters. off core and
When dry, pick place on screen
and thresh the or cloth to dry.
seed out.

Lettuce
Allow plant to bolt,
Tomato to form a seed stalk.
Pick ripe Cover to protect
tomatoes from from birds & rain.
several plants. Harvest seeds for 2
Squeeze seed to 3 weeks. This will
out, wash and require repeated
spread on cloth harvesting.
to dry. Certain plant varieties will cross-pollinate with other members of their same family. If you
are raising your own pure seeds, only plant one variety within that family.
Visit www.seedsavers.org for more information
Step #6 Sharing the harvest and teaching others
 Ownership
To insure garden success someone
must take ownership of each
garden.

They are the key person who

knows the purpose of each
garden and can assign workers
to get the job done.
Gardens open the doors to teaching others & building life giving skills
 Training Trainers and Building Passport.
To have passport (acceptance) with the people you are training, answer the
following questions:

Do people trust me?

Do people know that I care about them?

Do I have something that they need or that will help them?

If you answer yes to the above questions you are building passport.

It is important to remember that this is not a one time process, continue to

keep on building passport. Let your yes be yes and your no be no.
Closing YOU CAN DO IT!
Planting seeds for those in need
 Why pray over the gardens?
Colossians 1:16
16For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible,

whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him.
NIV

Who made the very first garden?

Genesis 2:8
8 Now the LORD God had planted a garden in the east, in Eden; and there he put the man he

had formed.
Genesis 2:15
15 The LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take

care of it.

Can a person make a plant grow?

1 Corinthians 3:6-9
6I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God made it grow. 7So neither he who plants nor

he who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow.
 Our Prayer to the Master Planter

To always put You first Lord in

all of our activities and to bring
glory to You, O Lord.

As we plant seeds in gardens,

we also want to plant Your
seeds – Your WORD, deep into
our understanding and deeper
into all our lives.

We ask You to help us to love

You more Lord, with all of our
hearts – feelings, with all our
mind – thoughts, with all our soul
– decisions, with all our strength
Garden in Shone, Ethiopia – actions and to love others as
ourselves.
We thank You, Lord for all Your creations, for the heavens and this earth we walk
upon.
Praying over a new garden in Ethiopia, Africa

We also ask in Your Name, Lord Jesus, to come into our lives now, so we can all move closer to You, O Lord and
learn who You really are – the Master Planter of all times and our only true Provider.
We ask you to bless these efforts for hope, health and healing. As we work, watch over and care for gardens, let these activities
remind us daily that You are the only One that grow good things in our lives. Thank You Lord. Help us O Lord, as we care for and
weed these gardens that we also weed out the bad things within us: Our self-serving ways, our worries, our greed, and our prideful
attitudes.
We give you all the Praise, Glory, and Credit and pay tribute to You and thank You, Lord for giving us all these different kinds of
seeds to plant, that You germinate, that You grow and that You produce for an abundant harvest.
We ask all this in Your name, Lord Jesus. Halleluiah! Amen
 Gardening for Life
By Wayne & Connie Burleson

“Planting seeds for those in need”

Saddleback Church PEACE Plan … teaching module