Before we start the next series of episodes, I want to share something I’ve just learned. What I’m about to tell you will not only help you avoid needing supplements and so much water but also help you not get sick. These goals (not needing supplements, not getting sick, getting more water) all converge on one topic: God-made food.
Listen to the episode:
God-Made Food
If you remember from episode 08, we brought up the topic of God-made food. But, we didn’t address the question – how does God make food? In this episode, we’re going to talk about the gardening method I am convinced follows God’s design for growing food. Plants grown by this method are so nutrient-rich that you will avoid needing supplements and so much water. If we don’t want to dish out the big bucks for making up what is lacking in the food we’re eating from the grocery store, we must return to God’s design for growing food.
God’s Design for Growing Food
Recently, I listened to a Summit on growing food. If you’ve ever dug into how to garden, you know that it can get very overwhelming. You have to balance the pH of your soil, test the soil to know which minerals are needed, fertilize your plants, irrigate them, spray for weeds and pests, and somehow have all the money to do this every year.
After listening to several presenters on the Summit, I was so overwhelmed. There was just too much to know, too much to do. However, the last presenter I listened to made me realize that, like with dieting, there is a way that God has designed to grow food. And all these other ways are man’s attempt to circumvent His design.
As Proverbs 3:5 says, “Trust in the LORD with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding.” I believe we have been leaning on our own understanding of how to grow food. From testing the pH to spraying our plants with herbicides and pesticides, we have been forcing our own way in the garden. The result of this are foods that are more “knock-offs” than what God intended for us to eat. These “knock-offs” will not provide our bodies the fuel we need, which is why we need supplements if we eat foods grown in soil that is not taken care of as God has designed.
So, How Do We Grow Food By God’s Design?
As with every topic, we should ask the question – how does God do it? To answer this question, we must turn to the Bible and nature. How does God garden? How does He grow food? And how does He feed the animals?
The man who has been digging into these questions is a man named Paul Gautschi. If you haven’t heard of Back to Eden gardening method, I highly, highly recommend watching it. You can watch it for free on YouTube here.
Paul answers the above questions in the Back to Eden documentary, but I’m going to try to answer them briefly in this episode.
The Back to Eden Gardening Method
Paul, in the documentary, says that when he asked the question of how God gardens, he realized that plants and trees grow in the forest all by themselves. No one waters them (except God via rain), no one sprays them to kill the pests, and no one tills the ground. Yet, amazingly, nature can grow the most beautiful and tasty things.
So what does nature do that we’re missing?
Paul observed that the floor of the forests were always covered. When you look at the floor of a forest, it is covered with all kinds of organic materials – wood chips, branches, needles, dead grass, leaves, etc.. Paul took this idea and started to cover his gardens with wood chips.
Surprisingly, the wood chips kept his plants moist without having to water, made weeding much easier, nourished the ground to make rich, nutrient-dense and microbe-rich soil, and prevented the ground from getting compacted. Wood chips also helped maintain a balanced pH of 7 in the soil and the right amount of water to meet plants’ needs.
If you watch the Back to Eden documentary, it’s hard to dismiss Paul’s statements about wood chips in the garden. His garden is beautiful and from it comes huge, healthy-looking, sweet-tasting produce. Furthermore, he’s able to grow things in his soil that are believed to not be able to grow in his region.
What Paul Does to Garden By God’s Design
Paul’s methods are very simple.
In the fall, he buries compost made from his leftover plants and other organic material in his garden. He covers the compost with wood chips. The rest of his leftover produce goes to the chickens.
In the spring, he takes his chickens’ manure, screens it, and uses it for top soil in his garden. He, then, sews his garden with heirloom seeds or seeds from his best crops from the prior growing season. He pulls back the wood chip cover to plant the seeds. Once the plants have grown taller than the wood chip layer, he fills in around the plants with the wood chips. If the wood chips are dry, he waters them.
As the Spring and Summer go by, Paul weeds as needed and prays over his plants. He also deals with bugs when they get greedy. On the Summit I watched, he mentioned using a mixture of cayenne and jalapeno in water and sprayed that on the plants to deter bugs.
The cool thing is that as time goes by, the soil gets richer and healthier. Therefore, there is a decreasing need for adding compost and wood chips over time.
There are other gardening tips Paul discusses in the Back to Eden documentary, but I think I covered the jist of them here.
What We Can Learn From Back to Eden
If you watch the documentary, it might seem as if wood chips are the miraculous answer to all gardening issues. However, using wood chips does not completely remove the curse man received in the garden (Genesis 3:17-19). I believe Paul’s faith and life of prayer are HUGE factors behind the success of his garden. God has truly blessed Paul’s hard work in his garden.
I want to emphasize here that Paul still has to pull weeds, fight pests, and follow the natural rules of each plant he grows. Natural rules like potatoes preferring being near a water source, and rosemary preferring sandier soil, etc..
Paul’s method of using wood chips addresses how to best prepare the ground for growing nutritious, healthy plants. We still have to deal with weather challenges, pests, weeds, and a less-than-100% yield.
However, there are four things Paul has demonstrated with his garden.
One, you must not lean on your own understanding of how growing works. If you want to garden by God’s design, you must look to nature and mimic what He does without interfering with what you think is best.
Two, though not every seed you plant will grow to the healthiest, most nutritious plant, you can trust God will meet your needs. Not only is God able to meet your needs through your garden, but also the needs of others in your community (Deuteronomy 24:19-21) and even bugs.
Three, you can trust that God will bless your hard work. God will not bless laziness (aka expecting God to weed, take care of pests, and cover the ground). We work hard every year to garden by His design and leave the rest to Him in His timing.
Lastly but most importantly, you cannot grow without the Grower. The main reasons for Paul’s success is his hard work, patience, and dependence on God. He never would have been as successful as he has been if he tried to take God out of his gardening. It’s because of God’s presence that Paul’s garden has been protected and nourished. God is the source of true growth, and if you try to take Him out of it, you will fail.
Quick note…
I want to also point out that there is nothing special about Paul and his Back to Eden methods. All he did was observe nature and try to mimic it in his own garden. I’m very grateful that Paul did that and has graciously shared what he has learned about nature over the years. However, God is the source of the information Paul is sharing. So, it’s important to not get too caught up in what Paul does. Rather, we should do what Paul does and has done in looking to how God designed nature to work and mimic it in our gardens.
So, How to Avoid Needing Supplements and So Much Water?
If you want to avoid needing supplements and so much water everyday, you must look to the food you’re eating. Furthermore, if want to diet by God’s design to heal and nourish your body naturally, a huge factor of that is eating food that has been grown by God’s design. The food grown by God’s design is going to be the most nutritious, water-dense, healthy food we can eat. This food will be the best food for our bodies and we won’t need anything else. No need for supplements and no need to drink eight glasses of water per day. You’re getting all of your nutrients and most of your water from the produce you’re eating.
How to Get the Best Food for Your Body
The best way is get the best fuel for your body is to grow your own food in a way that mimics nature.
If you have a backyard, even if it’s a small one, cultivate an area of it to grow food. Mimic nature by using cover like wood chips, leaves, or grass clippings, whatever you have. If you need wood chips check out ChipDrop.
If you don’t have the space to grow, pray consistently for a place to grow a garden. Maybe God will connect you with a friend or church member who has a place for you to start a garden. It’d be really neat if you could start a garden at your church. You could work alongside other members of your church, and potentially feed people from your community with it. That would be a cool ministry!
If this season is too busy to start a garden, then pray consistently for an alternative. Maybe God will connect you with a local farmer who is already growing food by God’s design. Or, maybe God will connect you with a friend or church member who is able to start a garden and wants to do it using natural methods.
Sidenote, we’re always going to be busy. Though there are some seasons that we really can’t do anything, most of the time we just need to make the time. Even if you don’t have the time or space to grow all your produce, you can do what you can and start small. That way you can avoid needing supplements by eating food grown by God’s design. Saves you lots of money in the end!
What My Family and I Are Doing
Speaking of busy… We’re still trying to get our house renovation done, but I’ve made a place to build up a good compost pile. I think it’s half full right now. My plan is to bury the compost in our yard to help it break down and enrich the soil. Some of that soil will be transferred to our growing site in the fall to prepare the soil for the Spring. I hope to get some wood chips from family to place on top of the growing site to kill the grass and weeds. And I will probably get some wood chips to put on top of the compost-soil mix to keep grass and weeds from growing in it.
Come Spring, we may not be able to plant much (especially since we’re on .01 acres) but anything I grow will be better than growing nothing. Plus, building up the soil will be great practice, though we aren’t planning on living in our home long-term.
If you’d like to follow along our garden progress, I’m going to send updates to my email list. I’m working on making new emails to send to my list on the changes I’m making for my family to help nourish and keep us healthy all year long. Tips in the emails focus on how you can avoid needing supplements and other man-made interventions. Also included in the emails will be some things you can do now to start gardening by God’s design.
If this interests you, join my email below:
Other Resources
Want to learn more about how to eat and live according to God’s design? Subscribe to my podcast on Podbean, Apple, Google, or Stitcher.
Ready to avoid needing supplements and so much water but don’t know where to start? Consider working with me, then, and I will help you do just that!