Garden Miracles - The Hulaco Garden Story - and 2015 garden

Dr. Jacob R. Mittleider,  a master gardener in every sense of the word, developed this method of gardening, known as the Mittleider Method.  He traveled to 27 counties teaching gardening.  He settled in Salt Lake City, Utah. To learn more about Jacob, visit the Food for Everyone foundation website. Growfood.com  Jim Kennard, a native to Utah learned Jacob's method to the extend that Jacob left the teaching of the Mittleider method to Jim.  Jim also traveled throughout the world teaching gardening and for a time relocated in Gardendale, Alabama.  (click here to watch a video of Jim teaching in Madagascar)

Jim surveying his new garden at his Gardendale home

I thought the door frame seemed low so he demonstrated how he could very quickly walk through.  I hadn't noticed he had dug out the earth under the door

                                   

Araksya picking peppers

While he and his wife, Araksya were here we discovered their passion for gardening and commitment to teaching it and were determined to learn everything we could. I was raised by a wonderful Southern gardener but she passed away when I was in my early 20's and before I realized I didn't know how she did it!  Our young family had tried several years to grow a garden with very little success.  So when Jim and Araksya moved here we realized this might be our opportunity to learn.  I followed him around like a puppy trying to learn everything I could. I helped with several gardens.

Bobbie's garden where the surplus was donated to Jessie's Place, a woman's shelter in Birmingham, Alabama

We took food to the woman's shelter by the car loads!

Jim Kennard in Bobbie's garden.  Notice the scissors in his pocket.  He was always pruning the garden.

I worked some in his and Araksya's garden while they traveled.  What a blessing to see how it's supposed to look! 

Honeydew Melon plants supported on a string!

This is a method that is simple to learn. I love that this method is very exact, in feet and inches, and very measured in teaspoons and pounds.  From the very first year, we had the best garden we had ever had! We had four summers with Jim and Araksya before they moved, leaving behind their nine beautiful garden boxes still laden with produce.
   
I am so grateful to finally know how to have a successful garden that each spring I try to find a way to share what I've learned.  It's my way of showing gratitude for this wonderful blessing.  Two years after Jim and Araksya moved, I had the most fabulous idea.... “We could plant a garden at our church camp, Hulaco Youth and Family Camp and teach gardening to more than a thousand young woman and their leaders each summer.

The girls could use the produce at camp.  I thought about it all that day. What an exciting idea! The next day I had another thought, much less exciting and a little overwhelmed.  The thought was, "This sounds complicated and even though this isn't expense if I wanted a garden big enough for 100 girls to get around it, it would need to be pretty big and I didn't have a budget for any of this". Then I had a very exciting thought! The kind of thought that comes from God, “The man that bought Jim and Araksya's house is taking out the garden boxes and he will let you have it all.” Oh wow! I could just feel it was true!  If we could have all that, we would have plenty of wood for the boxes! We would have T-frames, already built! We would have water pipes, already drilled and maybe the hardware would still be attached! It was painful to wait until after work to go by the house and talk to the owner. No one appeared to be living in the house.  I could see into the back yard from the driveway and it was obvious someone was in the process of removing the boxes and it was also obvious it was a very big job.

I wrote a letter to the address of the house, assuming someone might be checking the mail and in the letter said something to the effect of, “I was a friend of the previous owners and I remember what the back yard looked like and it would either be a welcome surprise or a huge eyesore. If you ever decide you want to get rid of the garden boxes, I would be happy to buy them from you. Our church has a non-profit girls camp and I could use the garden boxes to teach gardening each summer to over a 1000 girls. I can come with the boy scouts from our church and we can take it all up and haul it away.” I included my phone number. I few days later I received a phone call. “Yes, I am taking the garden boxes out and no, you don't need to pay me and yes, you can have everything.” Everything! What a thrill! I love it when it's God's idea.

I knew several people in the Gardendale area that had embraced The Mittleider Method of gardening and I knew they would see this as the huge blessing it was. They came and in one afternoon, we loaded it all up and hauled it to my house. At this point we hadn't even communicated with the leader of the Girls Camp, to see if it was even possible to have a garden there. The phone calls started that very night. It was decided that the Stake Young Woman leaders should be the ones to make the final decision since it would impact them and their schedules while they were at camp. I called all ten Young Woman leaders who used the camp. Five leaders representing most of Alabama, one leader in Mississippi, one in Georgia, and two in Tennessee. If it were possible that we could teach gardening to all these girls, we would eventually have thousands of young women all over the South, who would know how to plant, care for, and get an abundance of food from, a garden. What a concept! As I spoke with the ten leaders, it was interesting to me that their comments were very similar.  “This is a good thing. This is something we need.”
The approvals were granted.

We decided to spend the first summer having the girls clear the ground, paint and build the boxes but not actually plant until the next spring. About this time I was asked to sit on a Board of Review for our church's Boy Scout Troop. One of our scouts, Caleb Lyman was ready to begin a big leadership service project as his Eagle Project. It was perfect timing! Caleb took over the planning and organizing of the restoration and the relocating and rebuilding of the garden boxes.

Caleb Lyman

Caleb's large family came and pressure washed the boards

Clean T-frames ready for their new home

Boy Scouts loading the wood to take to Hulaco

There were so many miracles in connection with this project.  I felt I was surrounded by angels, some seen and some unseen.

One special miracle came at the end of a very long day of painting the wood for the boxes.  I was starting to feel like maybe I had bitten off more than I could chew.  It was almost dark when a cheerful lady wearing an apron came to see what I was doing.  She said she was the cook for camp that week and had been too busy to come down.  I told her we were building boxes to make a garden.  She was curious and asked lots of questions.  I tried not to appear as discouraged as I was feeling.  She asked several times what were my biggest concerns and what had I not figured out.  Finally I just spilled out all my worries.  I told her that I wanted to plant the garden a month before the girls arrived.  I wanted them to actually get to tend the garden and for them to learn, first hand, what to do when problems arise.  I told her, "we all know how to plant a garden, we just don't know what to do once it starts growing.  My problem is, this garden gets watered everyday and I live an hour away.  I told her, I had considered attending church in Cullman and just telling the women there what I was doing and ask if they knew someone who could help.  I told her "I am sure Heavenly Father has someone in mind to help with the garden but I didn't know how to find them."  She said, "ITS ME!"  I go to the church in Cullman.  Girl's Camp is in our ward!  In fact I'm the Young Women leader and there are two young women that live practically within walking distance of this camp and their family has a garden and I'm sure they would be willing to help!  That was the day I was convinced that this garden was something that Heavenly Father wanted.  In fact, it felt as if there was someone... I couldn't see, who had already organized this project.  I just needed to stay patient, stay hopeful, have faith and listen carefully and this was all going to work out great.

It was interesting to me that the answers came just as I realized I didn't know what to do next. Another example of this came the day Caleb finished building the boxes.  At the very end of the day we were taking a few last pictures and my mind was already looking ahead to what would need to happen next.   The watering system was next and I was still really concerned we didn't have enough water pressure.  The garden was near the bathhouse, but there wasn't a spicket on the garden side, so we would be using a very, long, water hose that would need to go to the other side of the bathhouse.  Brother Allen, who was an angel many times on this project, had mentioned several weeks before, that someone from Bessemer would be coming to camp, to do some plumbing work.  I hadn't followed up with him, but when he walked up, while I was taking pictures, I asked him about it.  "He's here now,"  was his reply.  There were only four people in the whole camp.  My husband, myself, Brother Allen and Brother Petus who was doing some work on the showers in the bathhouse.  He came out and, pointing to our new garden boxes, I explained to him about the garden and how we watered it and when I camp to again.... there was a new spicket on the garden side of the bathhouse! It was interesting that during our conversation he mentioned that he had laid all the water pipes at Camp Hulaco.  I love how Heavenly Father makes His help so obvious. 

Another tender mercy came as I was attending a viewing, of a family member, of one of my boy scouts.  He asked what I was worried about.  I told him I was worried about the garden at Hulaco. I didn't know how to connect the water pipes for each garden bed-underground and that even if I did it, I would always worry, I might have done it wrong.  He says, "My dad lays pipe.  Do you want me to see if he can help?"  "Yes, David, see if your dad can help."  Two minutes later he tapped me on the shoulder.  "My dad said he can do it."  David and the scouts planned a campout and on a beautiful sunny day, with his dad's help, they connected all the water pipes. What a blessing.

I'm not sure how I could still have doubts when so many miracles had already happened-but I did.  I had a terrible struggle trying to figure out how to get the dirt into the boxes.  When we built the garden box at our house we just had topsoil, leaf mulch and sand, tossed together at a landscaping place and delivered, but we couldn't find anyone that would deliver to camp for under 250.00 dollars.  Jim Kennard always preferred sand and sawdust in his boxes, but I didn't know how to get enough of that to camp to fill three 30' x 4' boxes.  I was only a few negative thoughts away from thinking this whole thing was a big mistake when Jim called and in a loud, enthusiastic voice said,  "Tina, the Spirit will not leave me alone! I have to help you with this garden!  When can I come down?"  "Jim, I don't need you to come down. I just need you to tell me what to do."  As I start to cry I tell him, "I don't know how to get the dirt in the boxes, it would be so expensive to have it delivered and I don't want the camp to pay for that, I can't figure out how to get that much sawdust there.  I don't know what to do.  Jim, till me what to do."  "Tina, use what you have.  Don't spend any money.  Try to find something clean, without grass growing in it.  Just use what you have."  When I called him later to say. "I had a forest full of leaf mulch."  He said, "That's fine, use that.  That is what Jacob used when he was in Africa."  I still had angels helping.
 
I was planning to just go into the woods and shovel up the leaf mulch and put it into the garden.  That might have worked if there had not been so many vines and roots near the surface.  I ended up doing it by hand.  After several hours I had about 10 bags.  I decided to take one bag and put it in the garden to see if there was, any way, I would ever have enough to fill all three boxes.  Not even close.  Brother Allen walked up about that time and said, "Is that what you want? Leaf mulch?"  There is a huge leaf pile, 100 yards long in Huntsville and at the most, we might have to give them $20 to load it for us.  He called a few hours later to say he had contacted Brother Kenard, a man he knew with a dump truck, and he said he would bring a load to camp on Saturday.  Brother Allen also said he would have someone dig up what was left of a sand pile that was there at Hulaco and add that to the garden.  Angels had saved the garden once more.

That same week, the sweet sister missionaries, Sister Farnsworth and Sister Swendiman informed me that they had received permission from their Mission President to leave their area and to help me in the garden on Saturday.  I told them I didn't think there would be any missionary opportunities there and that I would be there most of the day and not sure it was the best use of their time.  They insisted on going and I really did need their help.  We spent the day filling the boxes with leaf mulch. 

They were amazing workers and good company for Austin Green, a new convert, who had gone with us.   When we took our break for lunch, a gentleman walked by and looked for a long time at Sister Farnsworth.  She turned, and in her friendly missionary self, said "Hello".  He said, "I know you."  She had the most unusual reply, "Who do you think I am?"  "Cessily."  "Whoa! That is her first name!  He really does know you!"  He was her cousin!  She knew he lived in the Huntsville area but never expected to serve there.  He had done a tremendous amount of work on the camp and was there working in the kitchen that day.  They had a nice visit.  So glad they came to camp.  Sweet tender mercy.

We were finally ready to plant the garden and the sweet Dube' family came to help.  Unfortunately in my haste to get started I had mixed the fertilizer wrong.  Instead of mixing the salt and micro-nutrients in 13-13-13, I had mixed them in lime!  I killed two crops of tomatoes and it was now weeks into May.  At this point I still didn't know what I had done wrong.  Jim called.  He had decided to come to Alabama to check on some property he owned.  I knew the Lord had intervened once more.  I persuaded Jim to stay with us.   We were discussing the garden over dinner and when I told him my tomatoes kept turning 'blue' he said he would stop by the camp on his way back to Missouri.  The next morning before we left to go to camp, I got a text message from Dana Dube' saying we needed more fertilizer.  When I went to mix it up, in the quiet of my garage, I realized my mistake.  Before we left my house, I insisted Jim look at our garden - which looked fabulous.  He said so himself.  I said, "Good. I need you to remember this when we get to camp."  When we got to camp, I finally confessed my mistake with the fertilizer, he sent me to buy more tomato plants.  We worked until almost dark, replanting the garden.  Camp starts in a week.    

Everything for the boxes was free except a little PVC connection, one side of the fence and the wire that runs between the T-frames.  What a huge gift from Heavenly Father!

We picked bags and bags of tomatoes but not until camp was almost over.  

More cucumbers than we knew what to do with.

  I went up each week and taught a 30 minute class with the older girls and then they helped me in the garden.  It's so different to teach gardening to teenagers.  They haven't experienced the disappointment of having a garden fail.  What a blessing to be able to put this knowledge in their hands before that happens.  My greatest hope is that they will remember that we had a garden at camp, that it was successful, maybe they will remember it was the Mittleider Method and they might remember I said it was on YouTube.  They can Google it... and find everything they need to know, to make a wonderful, successful, garden.

This year's garden was a good start.  Next year... will be even better.

Hulaco 2015

Boy Scout Troop 609 in Gardendale camped out in February and buried a PEX pipe so the water hose wouldn't have to be moved by the mower twice a week.  They were really hard workers. It was a 75 foot long trench! That day, they also added more leaf mulch to the garden boxes. 

On February 5, I started tomatoes from seed.  It was my first try.  I was delighted with the results.

In April we had a garden class with the Madison Stake Relief Society.  They planted the garden as part of the class.  They were amazing!  Brother Harries was there that day with the tractor.  He scraped the grass away from the outside of the box and added some sand.  What a difference that made! 

Another exciting addition to this years garden was a proper gate. My husband, Doug made this beauty and installed it in May.



All up and growing





First cucumbers


Almost ready


Lemon basil from last year. It survived all winter. Just didn't have the heart to take it out.  This smells amazing!