Forest Gardening: A Living Sukkah

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Forest Gardening: A Living Sukkah

Sitting in our Sukkah at Eden Village, a hexagon of black locust from our forest, I can gaze in each direction and learn something about the place I am dwelling. I can look out to the east and see our production fields, mostly in covercrop of oats, with an occasional

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PRAY, PLANT, GROW

Wednesday, October 19, 2011 PRAY, PLANT, GROW repeat! Many of us are familiar with the Pray, Eat, Pray, pattern of Jewish practice. Well, in this Harvest Season- which is also the spiritual season of birth and renewal- a New Year brings us many opportunities for reflection, renewal and redemption. Today

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Workshop: Urban Composting – From Scraps to Soil

This year during Chol HaMoed Sukkot we will connect to the earth with our hands in the soil. I am teaching friends and neighbors how to compost right here in the city. I've partnered with a nifty new start-up for this inaugural venture. In the future, this workshop will be

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Sit Under a Vine and Fig Tree, and You Shall Not be Afraid!

‘Every one shall sit under his or her own vine and fig tree, and no one will make them afraid, for Hashem has spoken.’ Micah 4.4 What is it about growing your own fruits and vegetables that alleviates fear? Why does Micah believe Hashem has spoken through the act of

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Grassroots Jewish Women’s Community

By Teri Jedeikin Kayam Farm Multicultural Educator True to its name sake, The Matriarch’s Orchard watches over Kayam Farm from its place upon the hill. Its landscape, gently sloping towards vineyards and strawberry patches, is rich with fruit trees, berry bushes and spiritual symbolism. It is a space created by

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PotatOde

The 2nd in a series of poems about vegetable growing in my garden. Enjoy! PotatOde I’m growing potatoes it’s ever so sweet They grow underground and taste good to eat They take up much space as the plant it abounds You pile up dirt over the tubers in mounds The

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Back from KAYAM

Back from The Farm Kayam Farm- the scene of "Planting Seeds: The First Jewish Early Childhood Conference." It was better than imagined. It was the participants willingness to "dig deeply" on all fronts that mattered. People came from as far as Seattle,North Carolina, Texas, Boston and Worcester, Florida and New

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Lessons for Israel from Ghana

SEFWI WIAWSO, Ghana — About six years ago the Ghanaian government brought a delegation of Jews from the Israeli town of Dimona to Accra, Ghana’s capital, to speak about the importance of local agricultural production and consumption. But even though Ghana has a long way to go on its path

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Reflections on a Snow Pea

Reflections on a Snow Pea Green, flat, with a little elf hat Crispy, sweet, great to eat I wanted a snow pea, I planted a seed It grew past the radishes, carrots and weeds It reached to the sky, up my stakes and trellis My neighbors looked on, boy were

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Blessings for all

Jews love blessings. We bless our food, our weather, and our new clothes-nearly everything. Why then do we not have a blessing for planting? Today at camp, we began planting our garden. Campers were able to dig their hands—too often used for texting and videogames— into rich soil. They planted

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All we need is love

The kids are here. 183 screaming, excited and overly energetic 2nd-8th graders, and they are ready to change the world. Rather, we want them to be ready, but, is it reasonable for adults to expect these campers to make significant social change from our camp bubble in upstate New York?

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The world is sprouting at Camp Sprout Lake

It has been three days of hard work, blisters, and buckets of sweat, but it is almost time to sprout, literally. Next week, the campers of Young Judea Sprout Lake in upstate New York will arrive. For this eight-week summer, I have one goal in mind, to make clear the

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If a tree could grow in Brooklyn

Monday, May 9, 2011 If a tree can grow in Brooklyn If a tree could grow in Brooklyn, certainly a garden could grow in a New York school yard.Returning to the kindergarden, the Green Bubbie was thrilled to see the progress of the seeds she had planted with the children.

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Reflections on a Religious School year almost past

It seems hard to believe, but with the Pesach holiday having past, there are only 2 weeks of classes remaining in my Religious School calendar. This being my 6th year teaching a Jewish / Environmental education curriculum to 6th graders, I feel I have developed a pretty good set of

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Sun, Soil, Water: California Magic Should Do the Rest

Garden season in Southern California is year round and every time I turn around another garden has popped up. Last week I helped IKAR, a spiritual community in Los Angeles, to put in their very own garden. A great company, Farmscape, donated beds, soil and automatic watering supplies to the

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Eye on RAVSAK: The North American Jewish Day School Conference

Today is the second day of the RAVSAK conference and I will be presenting on a panel discussing "Laboratories for Innovation: Day Schools and Jewish Social Entrepreneurship." The theme for this year's RAVSAK is The High Performance, High-Tech Jewish Day School of the Very Near Future. The various presentations that

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The Garden

Garden. Two syllables. No difficult “ch” or “tz” sounding pronunciations. The guttural “ayin” is left entirely out of the mix. However, as a graduate student studying landscape architecture, I still find myself grappling with the word. As a child, there was only one garden, the Garden of Eden. There were

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California Grows!

California Grows! I recently attended the Hazon Food Conference in Sonoma, CA. There, I met numerous others who are working with gardens of all stripes; urban, suburban, rural, educational, communal, and private. I want to highlight a few of the interesting garden or farm projects in California. By sharing these

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Setting Strong Roots – an ongoing story of growth

“So where should I dig?” “Svalo! Wait! Not there… that’s where the new plots are going to be we’re digging now for the live hedge… Don’t worry there are 30 pits to dig for 30 beautiful bougainvilleas…” So yes it’s happening – the “Setting Strong Roots” Community Garden will be

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