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To my husband, who has fully embraced this way of life and my forays into making everything from scratch (even the flops), and supported my dream of being a writer when I didn’t believe in myself. This wouldn’t be possible without you.

Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.

Growing your own food is rewarding on so many levels. I think everyone should try to grow some of their own food. You may not have been born into a gardening family, but I promise you, you can become a gardener. Of course, there’s a learning curve and there might be frustrations along the way. In fact, if you don’t run into some sort of conundrum I’d be surprised. Anything worth doing will make you forge on ahead and over problems, and gardening is no different. This chapter contains my best tips for helping to curb those pitfalls as much as possible. Like anything in life, you’ll continue to learn more every year you garden.

Each area and climate zone will have its own unique challenges and requirements. We won’t cover everything here that you may come up against, but this will give you a good base and hopefully highlight areas for seasoned gardeners to look at as well.

Varying shades of green and brown, like a crocheted afghan, lay out before me. Birds twittered. Our chickens scratched the spring grass, searching for a tasty bite. All seemed normal in our small section of the foothills.

Two days before, a devastating landslide had ripped through one of our neighboring communities. Homes were swept away, lives ended, loved ones went missing among the old-growth trees that toppled and snapped like toothpicks in mud.

We live in a small mountain town, though by saying town, I’m being generous. We have a post office, a gas station, and a bar. That’s it. The nearest stoplight is 40-plus miles away. And we like it that way, we really do.

A volunteer fire department also serves as our ambulance crew and emergency medical technicians. They respond to every emergency in our area—medical, fire, or anything else. My husband is one of those volunteers and an EMT.

Saturday morning his pager went off. We were in the middle of pruning our grapevines, but we’re used to the interruption of the beep and static from his pager, followed by a message explaining the situation. When he left, I never dreamed what he would face or what would unfold in the following days.

The report came in of a mudslide covering the highway. Apparently there was a roof in the middle of the road. We’d had a mudslide take out our power and close the highway down about five years ago. I envisioned the same sort of thing.

This wasn’t the case. Upon arrival, a sea of mud over 16 feet deep covered the road and valley. The mountain had been sheared off, leaving a gaping wound of raw dirt. Homes were jumbled among the wreckage. People were buried beneath the broken mountainside.

My husband and his team were some of the first ones in on the east side of the slide. In order to keep above the mudflow and avoid needing rescuing themselves, they had to step on logs or other bits of debris.

For two hours they rescued and recovered people from the ruins. Then the slide became too unstable, and officials evacuated them from the area they were working.

News started trickling in about the severity of the slide. We could only get snippets of details. This was no small mudslide. Almost half of the mountain had slid. Waves of mud, logs, trees, and water over a square mile wide slammed into more than 50 homes. In places, it was over 20 feet deep. The landslide was so large, it actually stopped the river. Talk of flash flooding and evacuations began.

People were being pulled from the wreckage and airlifted to hospitals. Reports of a baby and child being rescued filtered through.

I tried to leave the computer, to go about our day, but like a hummingbird to syrup, I couldn’t stop checking the news. The only prayer I could push out was a sporadic, “Jesus, please be with these people. Help them.”

“Not good. The river is backing up, and the area’s not stable. They’re evacuating us from this area of the slide. I don’t know if I’ll be home tonight. Don’t hold dinner; put the chickens up. My phone battery is dying. I love you.”

I sat there for a moment, unable to put down the phone. What was happening? Were the rescuers safe? Not only was my husband on the rescue team, but my neighbors, people I grew up with, lifelong friends.

My children asked when their father was coming home. They know when Daddy is out on a call, he’s gone to help someone, but these calls usually last no more than a few hours. It had already been five.

What should I tell them? How much should I share? The urge to gloss it over tempted me, but the need to be honest was bigger.

“There was a big mudslide, and Daddy went to help pull people out of it. It’s really large, and a lot of people need help.”

Her words rippled over me. I’d been worried about how they would react, but evidence of the faith I prayed would grow in them shone through like the August sun. “You’re right. We should.”

My children and I held hands, a small circle of three in our living room, and we prayed out loud. We prayed for safety, for guidance, and for protection. They went back outside to play.

I stood in the living room, staring at where we’d prayed together. Of all the lessons I teach my children, I pray the ones of faith will be the ones that stick. My goal is to be an example, to lift them up and encourage them. On this day, in this moment, it was they who lifted me up. They showed me at their tender ages they already know what to do in a crisis. Pray.

Prayer is such a simple act. It’s one we often forget to lead with. But the older I get, the more I realize the simple things are usually the most powerful.

The day wore on. I found myself checking the news updates online more often than I should. My heart dropped to the floor.

My legs shook. I called my husband’s phone. Straight to voicemail. My throat tightened. False alarm, the crew was fine. Words of sweet relief on the screen.

I collapsed into my computer chair. He was safe. My husband was safe. But so many other wives’ husbands weren’t. They were buried in the mud.

Tears burned. The enormity crashed over me. Jesus. The only name I could utter. Be with them, be with us.

Supper came and went. I managed to get the spaghetti on the table and the kids fed. Bedtime rolled around.

I sat in my chair in the living room. My throat swelled. The television played, but my mind refused to focus long enough to watch. I eyed the clock. Would he come home tonight?

Seconds ticked by, turning into minutes. Grit filled my eyes. I forced myself to swallow past the permanent lump lodged in my throat.

Quarter to eleven. I pushed myself up from the chair. My fingers hovered over the porch light switch. Best to leave it on.

Headlights illuminated our yard. I waited, listening to the sound of his boots up the back steps. He entered the house. Dried swipes of dirt and mud darkened his jaw. His eyes spoke a terrible story.

He told me what he’d gone through, what they’d seen, what they’d done. I sat in the chair across from him and wept. I couldn’t speak. There were no words anyway. I listened.

I’m a fixer, a doer, a roll-my-sleeves-up-and-get-in-there kind of person. But there are times when I can’t do anything. In these times I learn to lean on God. Because when I can’t do anything, I step back and let Him take over.

The next day was Sunday. Though I always look forward to our church service, I craved it this morning. I needed to feel the presence of Jesus.

During the church service, I felt the sweet comfort of my Savior in the worship music, felt the wash of peace when we read His words from the Bible. But by the time I returned home, sorrow and anxiety had wedged themselves between my shoulder blades. The news coverage showed nothing but pictures and reports of the slide.

As the day wore on, my nerves stretched taut like the skin on an overripe tomato. I turned off the computer and television, and stepped outside. Two days before, I’d purchased some new herbs and flowers for the whiskey barrel planters flanking our front door. Trowel in hand, I sank down beside the planters.

Unable to draw nutrients from the ground, containers need some type of plant food or organic matter added to the soil each year. In the same way, we’re unable to draw from our Savior when we’re not in direct contact with Him.

Not bothering with gloves, I added a layer of compost to the planters. After I freed the plants from their plastic containers, I broke up the roots from their bound mass before placing them in their spots. Dirt caked my fingers. Silvery green sage leaves greeted me. Bright mint leaves promised fragrance for months to come and fresh flavor for drinks and teas.

With my hands covered in soil, I felt Jesus say, I bring new life. I am the giver of new beginnings. Death cannot win; I have conquered it. And I will bring newness and healing to this as well.

Tears of thankfulness warmed my eyes. I closed them and let the warmth of His promise and the afternoon sun soak into my skin. As He cares for the birds and the lilies of the field, how much more does He care for us?

While God has met me in many places, I feel a special nearness to Him when I’m working in my garden. I’m reminded that when things are bleak and dark, He is already at work beneath the dormancy, preparing new seeds and new growth for the right time. He is our master gardener. And our lives closely resemble the seasons of nature. We must pass through each season before we can enter the next.

My family has been saving and passing down our own strain of green pole bean for over a hundred years, near as we can trace.

When my father was five years old, he and my grandparents migrated from the Appalachian mountains of North Carolina to the steep slopes of the Pacific Northwest. My grandfather was a logger, and during the years of the Great Depression, jobs in the hollers of North Carolina were few. Reliable work wasn’t something to take for granted.

My grandfather and two other men converted the back of an old truck into a flatbed with walls, a roof, a stove, and bunk beds. Two small windows allowed light to shine through the homemade camper.

Three families made the trip out west. They shared the back of the wooden camper, ten kids and six adults with all their belongings. A cast-iron skillet, a few pots, and some tin plates were packed to do the cooking. Most people were lucky if they had more than two to three changes of clothes. A large suitcase held the whole family’s wardrobe and fit underneath one of the bunk beds. Bigger items were tied to the roof of the truck. Ropes lashed the necessities to the outside walls of the camper.

Soon the mountains and trees of North Carolina grew distant. The roads were no longer familiar.

They could only pack so much food. When they hit the prairie states, they’d run out of bread. When we go to the store, a typical treat is ice cream, a gourmet chocolate, or perhaps an iced coffee with syrup and whipped cream on top. But my father vividly remembers stopping at a general store on their road trip and buying a loaf of white Wonder Bread. Store-bought bread was a treat, and one rarely indulged in.

They found a place to pull off alongside the road, the sea of grass a flat, endless ocean rolling before them. Soft bread lathered with butter was an extravagance greater than any French croissant. He was five years old, and of all the experiences they had on the trip west, this is one that’s stuck with him over the decades.

Would you consider a simple piece of bread a special treat? But how much better would our lives be if we did consider the small, ordinary things as special? It’s one of my goals in life to stop and thank God for the things I normally take for granted. Try it and see if it doesn’t change your overall outlook on life.

It took a little over a week of travel to make it to Washington. My grandfather found work in the woods as a logger. The mountains were full of large timber. If you’ve ever viewed the vast slopes of the North Cascade mountain range, you’d be amazed to think that men with a couple of handsaws could harvest trees twenty feet thick and hundreds of feet tall.

My grandmother set about making their home with the meager supplies they’d brought west with them. Tucked into those belongings was a small seed, just as big as your fingernail, white and smooth. But from this one small seed God created enough food to feed their family through the winter months. From this one seed, God created enough food to feed uncountable families for decades to come.

The seed was that of a Tarheel green pole bean. These green beans are a heritage (or heirloom) bean. At the time of my grandparents’ migration, there wasn’t such a thing as hybrid seed on the market yet. Genetically modified foods weren’t something anyone would have fathomed.

This is beautiful to me. The seed doesn’t cost a thing. When planted it produces enough food to feed your family, and as it dies it provides you with the means to do it all over again. You see, God knew what He was doing when He created this world. Nature was made to work in balance. It’s when we mess with it that things get off-kilter.

Heirloom seeds are exactly as God created them when He made the world. They haven’t been touched by scientists or manipulated like store-bought hybrid seeds, which are sterile, or like genetically modified seeds, which I believe can cause much harm to your health and our natural ecosystem.

Of all the information I could share about gardening, my greatest desire is to tell people about using and growing heirloom plants. The vastness of variety and flavor is beyond anything you’re used to finding on your grocery store shelf or in the small set of hybrid seed packets for sale in many stores. They’re the only seed you can save every year and have it grow back.

When my husband and I were first dating, he came to my parents’ house for dinner. We’d been dating long enough that I knew he didn’t like green beans. But it was his first time having a meal at my parents’ home. It was summertime and my mother had cooked up a big pot of our Tarheel green beans. When I saw him dish up some of the beans, I knew he didn’t want to offend my mother by not eating what she’d prepared.

When my mother got up to get dessert, he reached for the pot of green beans. I thought he was really trying to impress my parents. I whispered, “I know you don’t like green beans. It’s okay; you don’t have to take seconds. My mom won’t care.”

He plopped a large spoonful on his plate. “I don’t like green beans, but I love these.”

Every spring of our marriage we have planted and grown these beans. My children won’t eat green beans from the store or in a restaurant. They can taste the difference. So can I.

I’ve never found our variety of green beans in the store or seed catalogs. I’ve had people contact me over the years who haven’t saved their seed and are eagerly seeking them out, or who have heard of the beans and want to try them. I’m sure my grandparents never imagined the reach this seed would have when they packed it with them.

When I think about what God can do with one small seed, I think about how much more He can do with my life if I allow Him to be the gardener of my heart. No matter what condition your garden is in, or the season, God is preparing you for the next. I hope your garden grows with the rain of God’s forgiveness and the sun of His love.

Learning to grow a garden is one of the most rewarding things my family and I do. We are able to cut back on our food bill, eat healthier, become more self-sustainable, teach our children a strong work ethic, and observe the incredible way God created nature to work in rhythm.

Did you know that food grown at home has more nutrients and vitamins than produce bought at the store, farmers’ markets, or even Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) programs? When food is allowed to ripen on the vine, it develops more nutrients and vitamins than early-harvested crops. Once it’s picked, it begins to lose those nutrients and vitamins.

Food we purchase in the store is picked before it’s fully ripe to allow for shipping time and the time it sits out on the shelf. It doesn’t have a chance to fully develop its nutrients. Although farmers’ markets are local and don’t require as much shipping time, they still take some. CSAs usually deliver once a week during the harvest months, but even then, you won’t be eating food straight from the vine.

When you grow your food at home, you pick it and prepare it immediately. No time for it to lose its nutrients and vitamins. It’s also amazing to taste the difference between vine-ripened, just-picked food and vegetables that have been shipped halfway across the country or world.

Some of you may be thinking, I don’t have enough acreage or a huge yard to grow a big garden. That’s okay. Even if all you have is a windowsill, you can still grow some of your own food. Even if you don’t own any land or don’t have any yard space, many communities are now offering up gardening space in a community garden. You can also do container gardening on a patio, porch, or deck. You can plant a small windowsill herb garden.

The first thing you need to do is commit to gardening for at least one season. Deciding to do something, instead of just thinking about it, is half the battle. Enlist the help of your family and make it something you all do together.

You’ll want to make sure the place you choose has adequate sunlight. Most plants require at least six hours of sunlight. Shade-tolerant plants—greens and short-season crops like radishes—will usually perform with less sunlight while your tomatoes and peppers will require more. Most fruit and vegetables will do best with full sun. When choosing your site, remember that trees that are bare in winter will provide more shade when their leaves come out in spring and summer. Tall buildings will cast less shade in the summer months when the angle of the sun is higher.

Consider how close you are to your water supply. If you’re carrying water by hand you don’t want to haul it too far. If using sprinklers or drip hoses, you don’t want to have to run miles of hoses or have to move them every time you mow the lawn.

Look at the slope of the ground. In a heavy rainstorm, will all the water run down and pool in your garden spot? A level area is preferable so you don’t have water pooling. Look for natural windbreaks if possible. Windy sites can batter tender or tall plants, will dry the plants and soil, and can also cause erosion.

Avoiding some of these pitfalls will make your gardening easier. Remember, though, that there are ways to make a garden work on some level no matter what your conditions are. If you lack the perfect spot, don’t let it deter you from putting in a garden. Work with what you have.

After choosing your garden spot, you’ll want to look at your soil. Is it sandy, rocky, or primarily clay? Does it drain well? Knowing what kind of soil you have will help you know how to amend it. Most soil will benefit from the addition of some good organic matter. Your plants are living things and need good food in order to grow and produce. This can be from a compost pile, aged and dried-out manure (not fresh), or even fertilizer purchased from the store. Seed meal, feather meal, and bagged manure make good fertilizer to grow healthy plants.

Manure from any animal will work. Chicken, cow, horse, and llama or alpaca manure is most common. The key is to turn and cover the manure. If used when fresh, the seed of whatever the animal has been eating may begin to grow in your garden area. Fresh manure is oftentimes too hot or has too much nitrogen in it, and it can kill your plants if applied directly to the roots. Mix the manure with some straw or sawdust, cover it, and allow it to sit for a few months before applying it to your garden. This works especially well if done in the fall (hot weather can make the smell a bit more unpleasant), and by the time spring planting comes around, it will be ready to be mixed into the soil.

The heat from composting microbes working to decompose the organic material is what kills the weed seeds. To make sure this happens, you’ll need the right ratio of carbon and nitrogen. The best ratio for a beginning compost pile is 30 parts carbon to 1 part nitrogen. Carbon materials are often referred to as brown and include wood chips, dry leaves, cardboard, and branches. Nitrogen materials are referred to as greens and include grass clippings, manure from cattle, sheep, goats, and chickens, and fruit and vegetable scraps. It is not advised to use dairy, meat, or fat scraps as these can attract unwanted pests.

Keeping this pile moist and turning it often will help keep temperatures high enough to kill the weed seeds. Your soil will also benefit from the addition of seed meal and even alfalfa hay.

While the pH level of your soil is important and we’re going to discuss it a little bit here, it’s not as important as having well fed soil. Most plants will still grow in soil that leans slightly one way or the other—acidic or alkaline. For example, we successfully grew broccoli, cabbage, and brussels sprouts in our acidic soil long before I knew they preferred a more neutral pH of 6.5.

However, knowing the acidity level of your soil can help you troubleshoot and grow a more successful garden. Living in the Pacific Northwest, our soil is generally on the slightly acidic side. This works well for blueberries, raspberries, and potatoes, as well as most vegetables. However, beets and brassicas like more neutral soil.

There are lots of at-home soil test kits, and most county extension offices will test it for you as well. An easy way to judge the acidity of your soil is by the color of blossoms of a hydrangea bush. If the blossoms are blue your soil is acidic. If they’re more pink, your soil is alkaline.

To amend acidic soil you can add wood ash or lime. If it’s too alkaline and you need to raise the acidity level, you can use sulfur or coffee grounds. Some studies show used coffee grounds to have a medium level of acidity, while others put them at only slightly acidic. Any time you’re amending your soil you’ll want to start with a small amount. You can always add more, but you can’t take it back out.

My best advice when gardening is not to start out too big. It’s easy to go through seed catalogs and walk through the produce aisles of the grocery store dreaming about growing all you see there on your own. Most of us would love to cut back on our grocery bill, and growing your own food certainly does help with that. When we’re plunking in seedlings or seeds, it doesn’t look like all that much. But when all of those plants start to grow and require more care, you’ll begin to wonder what on earth you were thinking.

Start by planting what you and your family eat a lot of and grows well for your region. For example, here in the Pacific Northwest I can’t successfully grow okra, sweet potatoes, or peanuts. The weather simply isn’t hot enough for those plants. Peppers and tomatoes tend to do the best with a greenhouse here, though they can be grown outdoors (depending upon the summer). Peppers and tomatoes will flourish for those in the south or hotter areas, but beets and snow peas might not fare as well.

Most seed catalogs and seed packets will specify an ideal region or climate zone. Getting advice from someone who has gardened successfully in your region is important. They will know from experience and be able to guide you. You can also get a lot of advice from a local independent nursery. They’ve been quite helpful when we were trying to decide which varieties of apple trees and strawberries to put in. Many of them will also have seedlings of vegetables known to do well in your specific zone and region.

Another way we select what to plant is by how well the item can be preserved. While cucumbers are most people’s go-to for pickling, my family really doesn’t care for cucumber pickles. However, we’ve been known to eat an entire quart of pickled asparagus at one meal. We only grow one hill of cucumbers for fresh eating on salads and focus on putting in more beans for dilly beans and regular canned green beans. Some lettuce is planted as we like fresh salads, but unless you’re using it in a green smoothie, frozen lettuce isn’t that appealing or versatile. Instead, we like to grow kale or spinach, both of which can be frozen and used in different dishes.

Each family is unique and it’s important to remember to tailor what you grow in accordance with what your family prefers. Don’t worry about starting out small either, thinking it won’t be enough. Being able to stay on top of a small garden will have you eager to plant more next year. Every year we bring in one new vegetable or variety to try. Usually that means we end up enlarging our garden plot bit by bit as well. Working new ground and just planting cover crops the first year is a great way to get your soil ready for new vegetables. It helps reduce the weeds, lets old sod break down, and builds organic matter. There are lots of reasons to expand slowly.

If your soil is clay or not in good shape, many people prefer to put in raised beds or to use large containers. This also works well if you don’t have very much land. Even people with a back deck or small patio can do container gardening.

It’s important to ensure that the container is large enough to support the root system of whatever you’re planting. Make sure there are ample drain holes in the bottom of the container as well as some drainage material, such as rock or gravel, with the soil on top. You don’t have to invest in fancy containers if you don’t want to. Five-gallon food-safe buckets work well, and many times you can get them free from a local restaurant or bakery.