Outrageous Gardens!

"May I become an inexhaustible treasure for those who are poor and destitute…"

   Dec 23

For January 12: A thousand gratitudes and ONE request

I have lived a very blessed life, not an easy life or a simple one or filled with all that I imagined or dreamed while I was growing up. But still I am blessed.  My mother used to tell me “If you wake up breathing in the morning it’s a GOOD day!” She died much too young from heart disease. She knew what she was talking about.

Being blessed with abundant health, amazing friendships,  connections, a passion for teaching and sharing all that I know, with four amazing children and beautiful granddaughters are just the beginning of all that I am thankful for each and every day.

As the season of gratitude, abundance and joy engulfs so many of us, I want to ask my readers one favor. Just ONE! I don’t think I could ever ask more of you but it’s one gift that will reverberate through a thousand lives.

Here is a link to an article about my friend, Margaret Trost, and the organization she grew out of a trip to Haiti.

(Photo courtesy What If? Foundation website)

(Photo courtesy What If? Foundation website)

Margaret founded the What If? Foundation ten years ago as a Haitian-run food program for the children in one of the poorest neighborhoods of Port-Au-Prince. They are still feeding thousands of people each week, unstoppable in their zeal not to allow the tragedy of Jan. 12 or the travesty of failed mega-philanthropies to allow their neighbors to go hungry.

Please read this article from beginning to end.

Then send the link to that article to 12 of your friends (or more) by email and ask them to read it. Tell them that you just made a $12 donation on the What IF? Foundation website. (Why 12? Because the 12th of January is when the earthquake occurred.) That’s all I’m asking–the cost of a couple of fancy lattes at Starbucks.

Ask your friends to do the same: read the article, forward to 12 friends, donate $12 to What If? Foundation. Feed a child for an entire month.

If you send $12 and your friends send $12 and their friends send $12, do you see what we can accomplish?

The world has turned its back on Haiti, but What If? has stood with the Haitian people through every tragic, painful, hopeful, angry, hungry moment and allowed the gift of good food, education and joy to remain if even for a few moments each day. Read the article. Send the link. Send $12. Change the lives of thousands!

Here are some more ways you can help spread the word:

Send your friends a link to the What If? website with your personal recommendation.

Join our Cause on Facebook and ask your friends to join as well.

Search the web using GoodSearch and invite your friends and family to do the same.  Every time you do a search a penny will be donated to the What If? Foundation, and every penny adds up!  Its free and easy – learn more here.

Forward our e- newsletters to your friends.

Share a What if? Foundation overview packet (brochure, bookmark, DVD, Annual Report) with your faith community, congregation, rotary club, etc. Contact our office to request a packet.

Recommend What If? Foundation President Margaret Trost’s book – On That Day, Everybody Ate: One Woman’s Story of Hope and Possibility – to your friends, book club, school, and anyone else who you think might enjoy it. Click here for more information about the book.

And enjoy this very special thank you from the children in Haiti.

As Margaret says: “Piti piti na rive.” Little by little, we will get there.

May you and yours enjoy warm food, much laughter, intense gratitude, light and joy in this year of Hope, 2011.

Much love and as always, many thanks for reading my posts. Yvonne

PS: Do post a message when you participate in our $12 fundraiser! It will make my day!

Best gardening dates will return New Years to get you ready for spring, but our friends at Kitchen Gardeners International show you how you can grow a garden, even in the snow! ENJOY!!


   Nov 10

“The gods must think we’re crazy!”

What a delightful story from Kitchen Gardeners International that warmed the seedlings in my straw bale garden when I read it to them. From Roger Doiron, comes this timely piece about a rather unusual but very “outrageous garden” in Berlin, Germany. With not one tilled inch to be found. Prinzessinnengarten photo

(Now comes the part where I get to repeat my favorite saying:) “Don’t tell me you can’t grow food anywhere!” There I’ve said it yet again. Read on and enjoy! (KGI is one of the best websites around, the driving force behind the White House vegetable garden. Please DONATE to keep it alive and well.) (more…)


   Sep 05

It ain’t over….till the prickly pear ripens.

Ahhhh! September….the time of year when gardens are blooming but the humans are not. Bad combination. Our community garden group is going through that phase right now: back to school for the kids, end of summer and last minute vacations, starting new jobs. There is always something to deter us in these hot days from what is right in front of us: our garden. (more…)


   Jul 25

Lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer…

butterfly

I love this time of year. Looking back over our shoulders at where we’ve been the last three to four months, how could we not be amazed by the shape and size of all that is growing in our gardens. Even the hailstorm that ripped the plants to shreds last month couldn’t destroy its beauty. The tomatoes, beans, and greens are going strong. (more…)


   Jun 25

A Cure for the Gulf Coast Blues

And forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair.- Kahlil Gibran

Maddie 003


Hard these days not to feel either hopeless and depressed or so outraged and disgusted you consider creating open season on the management of BP Oil. Yeah, been there myself.

What does pull me up from the pits of despair is something like this photo, taken last year of my granddaughter, feeding lorikeets at the Rio Grande Zoo. When one of them landed on her head, I prepared for a lorikeet mob action if Maddie began to cry or shriek.

Instead, she stood statue-like, asking if I could see any more wanting to join in. Unconcerned about the possibility of “droppings” she was in awe of this contact between thirsty winged creatures and herself and was totally content to allow it to continue. Sorry I don’t have a pic of the enormous grin on her 7 year old face. (more…)


   May 05

Amazing ways to honor Big Momma!

It’s been an intensely painful week personally, trying to deal with so much human-induced abuse to this amazing planet and to all of her creatures, including humans. And while some days all I can do is walk by the river and weep, I’ve received some truly inspiring ideas recently that are happening right in our community. Here are just a few I hope can perk up your Momma’s day.

Yes, it’s TRUE! The World Hunger Exhibition is coming our way in just a few days! (more…)


   Mar 29

It’s March: we’re late, we’re late!

Welcome to spring, everyone! And thanks for re-joining the blog after my winter’s pause. More info is coming on the program in Haiti with some good news for a change at a later date.

For now it’s been typical spring in Albuquerque: snow, rain, wind, sunshine, heat, more wind. I hope you already have peas in the ground.  Pea seeds love to be snowed on at least once this time of year. And get those potatoes going–in bags, boxes, tires!potatoes in a tire

I recently facilitated a short workshop on “Taking Your Garden to the Next Level” for the Albuquerque Backyard Farms priming attendees to get their garden ideas out of their heads and into action. It’s important to think about not one or two but three seasons when you start laying all those seed packets on the kitchen table. You’ll want to get on the ABF email list because this group of talented, feisty gardening and farming addicts has pulled together a non-stop list of workshops, garden tours and resources to help everyone realize their desire for self-sufficiency.

At the March workshop, the first of the Albuquerque Backyard Farms series for 2010, I introduced folks to two zippy little on-line planting programs to help in setting up your schedule for the coming season–especially if you’re behind in your planning! (more…)


   Jan 27

For Haiti’s Sake: A Permaculture Relief Corps

permaculture logo

Permaculture is a design system based on ethics and principles which can be used to establish, design, manage and improve all efforts made by individuals, households and communities towards a sustainable future.

There is a growing buzz on the internet and social networking systems about a “different” kind of aid effort: a Permaculture relief corps. There is actually a listserve devoted to this discussion and articles are popping up all over engaging in this theme. Why Permaculture and what would a “permaculture relief” team look like? Here’s one article I found helpful on Maddy Harland’s blog Permaculture Magazine Editorial. (more…)


   Jan 19

New Year, New Moon and Haiti

As I was writing this last week, I was feeling the excitement of a book nearly completed, of a Youtube video on ‘outrageous gardening’ being edited, of all the support I receive on nearly a daily basis from friends, family, colleagues and the amazing women of my personal sisterhood collective.  I was ready to announce the availability of my book on the New Moon, Jan. 15th.

And then it was Tuesday evening at my computer, after a delicious meal with a good friend, that I received the first dispatch from Margaret Trost, founder and chairperson of the What If? Foundation: (more…)


   Oct 19

An end to hunger and poverty: don’t doubt!

sunflowers in grate“It is important for people to realize that we can make progress against world hunger, that world hunger is not hopeless. The worst enemy is apathy.”
– Reverend David Beckmann

And sealed within apathy is the feeling of helplessness with a smattering of “it will always be this way” thrown at us on a daily basis.

Sunflowers shouldn’t grow in a sidewalk grate but they can and do. If I believed it would always be this way, I wouldn’t be able to do what I do which is teach people to garden, collect simple, sustainable methods for gardening, or plant even one seed. Gardening teaches me that nothing is impossible or unchangeable.

Life in general IS change. Without change we could not grow, heal from illness, bake bread, fall in love, have children. All those and more demand that something changes. And true to the life energy itself, my personal career path has meandered onto a completely different territory since August, one that is allowing me more time to write on the book that set this blog in motion.

The purpose for this blog and the book remain–seeking ways to end hunger and poverty at the most basic and empowering level by growing our own food. (more…)