Carmen Ulloa had been praying for a way to help her family get in touch with Catholic spirituality on the ecology when she saw an advertisement for a Saturday morning diocesan event called “Tending the Garden.”
She and her daughter, Victoria, made the trip from Riverside to Three Sisters Farm in San Timoteo Canyon near Redlands where they spent the morning learning from owners Abby and Jason Harned about how they grow vegetables in a way that sustains and replenishes their land while allowing them to make a living.
“They were so wonderful and knowledgeable of all the stuff they do here in the garden and teaching us things we didn’t know,” said a grateful Ulloa.
The October 12 event, also dubbed the First Annual Diocesan Sustainability Day, was organized by the Diocesan Laudato Si Committee and Campus Ministry of the Diocese. It drew parishioners from Redlands, Loma Linda, San Bernardino, Moreno Valley, Fontana, Riverside and as far away as Barstow.
“God gives us the important responsibility to tend his garden, to till it and keep it,” said Diocesan Vice Chancellor John Andrews, who chairs the Laudato Si Committee. “Today’s gathering is meant to help us reflect on that calling, and to experience a little bit what it actually looks like.
Deacon Eric Vilchis, from The Holy Name of Jesus parish, led an opening prayer taken from the Blessing of the Flocks and Fields. “O God, from the very beginning of time you commanded the earth to bring forth vegetation and fruit of every kind,” he said in the prayer of blessing.
On the warm fall morning, participants donned sun hats, gardening gloves, and in the spirit of the occasion, toted their refillable water bottles as they walked the 10-acre farm with the Harneds. The first stop was a storage building on the farm that, while girded with steel framing, is otherwise made of straw bale, an emerging trend in eco-friendly building.
The tour then traversed the farm fields where participants learned about the different crops grown, from a hearty cabbage-lettuce hybrid that better withstands the summer heat, to garlic chives to purple asparagus to a spicy arugula that was offered for nibbling. Then it was time for participants to actually get their own hands in the dirt. They took on the challenge of planting 100 broccoli plants across two rows in a matter of minutes.
As they described their farming operation, Abby and Jason Harden continued to emphasize their belief in practicing sustainability, which meant everything from composting, to using manure from nearby horse farms as fertilizer to using more durable and long-lasting irrigation materials that may cost more up front but pay for themselves in the long run.
“We love teaching people about what we’re doing. We’re happy to share our methods,” said Abby. “We need more small farms. In a perfect world, every neighborhood would have a small farm.”
The day closed with a short, guided reflection led by Paco Estrada, who invited attendees to break into pairs and share about how the morning had impacted them, with the prompt – How do our Catholic roots in community and creation call on you to respond when you see the cries of our earth? Estrada is a student at Loyola Marymount University and is active in Common Home Corps, a member organization of the Catholic Climate Covenant.
Reflecting on the day, many participants made the connection between the sustainability practices at Three Sisters Farm and the ecological spirituality articulated by Pope Francis in his encyclical Laudato Si.
“They are definitely doing the Lord’s work here,” said Achilles LaSalle from St. Christopher Parish in Moreno Valley.