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
• 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, lifetime, hand-up endeavors,

not a hand-out
Teaching with
photos helps
 Success in Africa
A Church Demonstration Garden
Small Village in Rwanda, Africa

Growth in 61 days
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 then bag up the following?

•Old dry livestock dung
•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 root for plot

African Cow House

= decomposed
organic matter
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.

Repeat all layers until

1 Meter high
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 maze for air ->
Step #2 Garden Construction; Garden location; Raised beds

2.64 Meters

1.32
Meters
 Step #3 Planting/plant spacing

Why have a grid

 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 Pea Lettuce These Tomato

Radish Pepper
Onion Seeds Beet Swiss chard Plants
Carrot Broccoli Can also Cabbage
Green Bean 1.5 cm deep
Onion Sets Marigold Be started
Onions 2 cm deep Spinach from Cucumber
1.5 cm deep Transplants Cantaloupe
Small 2.5 cm deep 2.5 cm deep
Carrots Potato 8 cm deep
1 to 2 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
Wise water use
 This lady in Shone, Ethiopia, Africa is a
very good gardener as she knows how to
place valuable water on each seed zone,
which saves her much labor - hauling
hard to acquire water for her garden.

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) = evaporates water fast,
Cooks and kills valuable microorganisms, no added soil nutrients and weeds can germinate
Don’t Weed Instead Cultivate
Step #6 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
from seed to stomach
 A Life Giving Story
Salmon River Pumpkin (A Winter Squash)
From Seed to Seeds
 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
Sharing the harvest and teaching others
 Why pray over the gardens?

Who made the very first garden?

Can a person make a plant grow?

Gardens open the doors to teaching others & building life giving skills
Closing YOU CAN DO IT!
Planting seeds for those in need
 Gardening for Life
2010
Production Photos

Double Cucumbers
Pick one get 2 more

1,000 Carrots in 4’ X 8’ box A Wheelbarrow full of Lettuce

100’s of tomatoes from few plants

Large early potatoes from one plant
 Gardening for Life
By Wayne & Connie Burleson

“Planting seeds for those in need”

Saddleback Church PEACE Plan … teaching module