Interns after a water fight

The Hot Humid Lowlands (a.k.a. my garden)

Pruning Grapes

Germinating seeds in the Seedbank

Last April I moved to North Fort Myers Florida to begin an internship in tropical agriculture at Educational Concern for Hunger Organization (ECHO). During which I was put in charge of a rather large garden plot representing a garden in the Hot Humid Lowlands areas of the world. It was my responsibility to keep things growing and the unwanted growth out (a.k.a. weeds). I had about 9 hours a week slotted for gardening; the rest of my time was spent in nursery sales, as a tour docent, at an assortment of training seminars and accomplishing various seed bank duties. ECHO’s goal in the training of interns is so they will be better equipped to serve as agricultural missionary in a developing country.  My year of intense training has come to an end, rather quickly I might note, and I find myself asking what is next? What does God have in mind for me to do? As I ask these questions God has began to open the doors to several possibilities. Although I don’t have the details worked out I wanted to share with you what doors God is opening for the next step in my life.

One door He is opening is a mission in Uganda that has an agricultural component to it among other things. Another door He is opening is for a place in Sudan that is getting started on working with agriculture. I am praying for God to work out the details of how I would be involved and which ministry He would have me to be involved with. I will keep you all updated as I know more, but I wanted you know how God is working and ask you to join me in seeking Him for His continued guidance in my life. 

Hi, everyone I know I haven't updated for months and you all think I've fallen into one of the ponds and drowned, but despite your wildest imaginations I am still here. I have had a very busy few months. November I turned 30 :0 and yes I'm still in shock, but slowly adjusting to my new decade. My parents came to visit and loved every minute of their time here. I got some good work out of them too. The rest of November was a flurry of activity trying to get the farm in tip top shape for the international agriculture conference we hold annually. Conference rolled around in the first week of December and there were ~270 delegates from ~27 different countries. We managed to have the farm in good working order by then, thanks to some seasonal volunteers who came back early just to help with Conference preparation. 

The week before Conference, my Cousin go hit by a car while walking down the street in Orlando, so I went to Orlando to spend the weekend with her and her family and then came back and attended the conference, then flew home for the weekend to have Christmas with the family. I was back for a week and then went back home and to Iowa with my Sisters, Grandma and the dogs for Christmas and New Years with my Parents. I arrived back in Florida on the 4 of January, and there were two new interns, one of which is my replacement. The last three weeks have brought some very cold temperatures, 26 F one night. With the cold temperatures have come some long nights of watching for frost and checking temperatures around the farm.  We can now easily distinguish between the Trees that are more tropical than sub-tropical. Hopefully most of the damage is just burnt leaves and not completely dead trees. Maybe I will have some pictures soon for you to see the damage. 

I am thinking and praying a lot these days about what my next step should be. I have talked with a couple of places in Eastern Africa, but I don't have any solid leads yet. I appreciate your prayers as I seek God's will for the next year(s) of my life.

Heather

My Garden in December when it was still beautiful

Broccoli

Amaranth (a small grain with a large amount of nutrients)

Amaranth

Eggplant

About 300 Onions for out Market Garden, we sell them to help offset farm cost.

Tropical pumpkins

My gorgeous Tomatoes before they got Late blight:(

Cabbage

Inter-cropping cabbages with onions to help cut down on the bugs.

Green beans

My Birthday

Back row: Stitch, me, Rachael, Heidi, Phoebe, Tim, 

Front row: Marcie, Terri Lynn

Back : Tim, Marcie, Stitch, Trey

Middle: Sara, Me, Heidi, Rachael, Terri Lynn

Front: Phoebe

Me & Phoebe at my Princess Party:)

My Dad and Mom visited in November.

Mom and Cym my volunteer

Rice seedlings just after they were planted in June. A single seedling is transplanted at an even spacing of 25cm x25cm and at just 2 weeks after the seed is planted in a seedling bed. This is a few of the basic principles of planting rice in a method called the System of Rice Intensification aka SRI. With SRI you also water the rice and keep the ground moist but not flooded and it also requires more weeding, since it is not flooded and the water can't keep the weeds down.

With this method Farmers around the world are increasing their yields substantially. Scientist are still debating whether it is the actual method or just that the farmers are taking better care of their rice as to the reason for the increase in yield.

This is the same paddy as it is growing. We have two replications of 8 different varieties planted here.

The rice as it is ready to harvest.

Just before harvest.

Me in the partially harvested paddy. We had to harvest each replication of each variety separate and only the inside of each block leaving the guard rows for later, so we can evaluate how well each of the varieties produced.

OK so I am finally updating my blog again.

This is an example of building a raised bed & transplanting sweet potatoes.

Michelle helped me build and plant this bed in August.

We started with this weedy broken down bed and set strings at the proper width for the bed and then placed the dirt outside the string back on top of the bed.

Then you spread the dirt, pack it down and the you end up with this beautiful bed.

To plant the sweet potato we took cuttings from the terminal ends of the sweet potato vines and stuck them in the ground.

Last but not least we put down new paper and mulch to keep the weeds down.

Here are our cuttings a couple of weeks later. Now they have filled the bed and are spilling over into the beds on either side of them.

El Salvador

We went to El Salvador for an agricultural conference and on our last day there we got to climb a volcano!

Carlos (yellow shirt) was our ride to the volcano and Beth (the intern coordinator)

Danny and Keith

Phoebe & Jason

Danny at the top

Church in the town square of Suchitoto 

Heidi riding in the back of a pick up truck on the way to the volcano

Heidi & Phobe

Volcanic crater lake

Phoebe and I making candy, a micro-enterprise of a couple of local ladies.