20th September

Wednesday night’s enrichment night with the Grotaers was a very educational evening for all who attended.
Based around President Kimball’s admonition to grow as much fruit and vegetables for ourselves that we possibly can and to learn the skills of home production, the Grotaers shared with us their vast wealth of knowledge and the importance of using certified organic seeds and plants in our gardens.

Briefly: the reason is that the large seeds companies such as Yates have been bought out by even larger chemical companies who have introduced genetically modified seeds. These seeds contain herbicides and pesticides already built into them, worse yet they are genetically engineered to grow sterile fruit and vegetables, so that each year we must buy new seeds. As collecting the seeds from your crop will produce either little or no results. The most important thing for us to
know is that if we are growing genetically modified sterile fruits and vegetables then we are no longer eating living food and it will impact our health. It also means there can be little doubt the fruit and vegetables we buy are also sterile. We can see the impact of this in the rise in disease and illness in the population.

It may sound like hippie tree hugging propaganda, but it is a sad reality of the times in which we live. The seeds companies you can use with peace of mind are certified organic seeds companies such as Green patch, Green harvest and Eden. The Diggers club, which is an online ordering company, carry all organic seeds, their website is www.diggers.com.au.
Another company that has a select range of organic seeds is the New Gippsland Seeds & Bulbs, 120 Lewis Road, Silvan Victoria, Australia, 3795 P.O. Box 1 Silvan Victoria, Australia, 3795 Enquiries: (03) 9737 9560 Free call for orders: 1800
887 732 Free fax for orders: 1800 088 077 Email: orders@newgipps.com.au
I have used this company before and found them to be very helpful. You can see their full catalogue online.
The Grotaers are passionate about gardening and living the Prophets counsel to grow what we feasibly can, they run an organic growing class on the second Saturday of every month. Their contact details are: Pat and Vic Grotaers, 18A
Britannia Creek Rd, Wesburn, ph:59671134.

Of all that the Grotaers shared with us, the most important comment was: ‘Whether you like gardening or not President Kimball said to do it.” he likened it to years ago before there was a Temple in Australia, if you wanted to go to the Temple you had to go to New Zealand. He talked abut how people had to step out in faith and set a date to go and work towards it,
relying on the Lord to help them achieve their goal of getting to the Temple. He said we can liken it to gardening , make the determination to start, rely on the Lord and do it. Step out in faith and see what happens.

We also learnt that some bugs and creepy crawlies are friendly bugs and well worth keeping in your garden, such as the red centipedes we see, these are carnivorous and eat other bugs, namely the bad ones that like to munch on our tender plants like slatter bugs. Those little gray ones that roll into an armoured ball if you touch them. I think most of us came away from
the night with a renewed determination to grow our own vegetables. Attached is a copy of their monthly newsletter for their organic growers club, well worth a read.

One thing that is plainly clear is that growing your own vegetables used to be common practice in nearly every back yard. Now it is almost considered an old fashioned hobby. We need to embrace learning all we can to be prepared for all things. We need to teach our children, our youth, our young adults to be able to grow a garden, sew their own clothes, to be self
sufficient in as much as they can. We are quickly loosing the skills our grandparents grew up with, we need to get them back.