Did you ever wonder how Chrome updates work, and you know what exactly is Chrome Canary? Well as you might know, there are actually four varieties of Chrome available at any one time. You might also hear these called Chrome Release Channels. So first, there's Chrome Canary, then that's the most experimental Chrome channel with all the latest new features added without much testing. Next comes Chrome Dev, and there's more testing at this stage, but it's still likely to have some bugs. Chrome Beta comes after that, and this is even more polished. And finally, after full testing and checking that everything works as expected, you get Chrome Stable, which is probably what you're using right now. So hi, I'm Sam Dutton, and I work with the Chrome team as a developer advocate. And in this video, you'll learn how Chrome tests new features and rolls out updates. You'll find out how Chrome Release Channels work, and why you might actually want to use Chrome Canary. Now I won't go too deep technically, but you should get a good understanding of how and why we release new versions of Chrome. But first, I'd like to explain why we need all this. Think about how you release stuff. For example, you're right, I don't know, a really important email, you check it a thousand times, and finally, you press send, only to find you made a spelling mistake and you got someone's name wrong. You know, it's like, ah, anyway, software is like that only worse. Chrome has thousands of contributors, millions of lines of code, and billions of users. When you release a new version of software like Chrome, it just has to work. Popular complex applications need really robust processes to ensure that new features and changes to code avoid adding bugs and causing unexpected side effects. So you need really strict mechanisms for testing software before you release it. But of course, in the real world, you also need to expect the unexpected after software is released and when real people start using your product at scale. And this is particularly true for web browsers. Browsers, you know, don't work in isolation. They need to cope with the quirks of millions of websites changing constantly and all kinds of user behavior, expected and unexpected. We could release a new version of Chrome to billions of users and dozens of languages across multiple operating systems and a gazillion different devices, all in one big bang and just, you know, cross our fingers and hope for the best. What could possibly go wrong? Well, of course, we don't do that. Instead, we begin by experimenting with a change or a new feature in Chrome Canary. In other words, we update part of the code. And of course, some changes never make it any further. But if all goes well, we update Chrome Dev with the change and then Chrome beta with more and more testing and more checks until finally the changed code makes its way into Chrome stable. Chrome stable is the Chrome release that just about everyone uses.  So just to sum up, there are actually four Chrome applications available at any one time. Chrome Canary, Chrome Dev, Chrome beta and Chrome stable. And, you know, that's the same on mobile as well as desktop. And each one of these is called a release channel. And I'll tell you later how you can actually install them. So let's look at these in a bit more detail. First up, Chrome Canary. And this version of Chrome is like the proverbial Canary in the coal mine with a logo to match. Chrome Canary helps us try out changes with real users and developers to test for glitches before they become a problem. Chrome Canary is released daily. Changes and new features get added with minimal testing. You know, Canary can and does break. Occasionally, a Canary build may even have a bug that makes it crash or be completely unusable on some sites. But of course, the good thing about releasing Canary every day is that bug fixes can be shipped quickly too. So why would you want to use Canary? Well, you know, if you like to live on the edge, this is the version for you. But seriously, Canary is really useful for developers and enterprise users needing to test new features. Just bear in mind that some features may never make it beyond Canary. That's one of the reasons Canary is actually so useful. Now, Chrome Dev Channel is the next stage in the process. New versions of that get released once or maybe twice a week. Chrome Dev shows what the Chrome team is working on right now. Now, this version is still pretty fresh. It gets more testing than Canary. But you know, you're still likely to find bugs and other glitches. So next up is Chrome Beta, which is far more, well, just more polished and carefully checked and tested. It's updated about once a week with major updates every four weeks. Chrome Beta gives you access to improvements and new features more than a month before the stable channel will get them. And that's the final stage of the Chrome release process, Chrome Stable. Changes and updates only make it into stable when they've been through a process of rigorous automated testing and manual checks. Now, this is always the Chrome channel you should consider as default and current. The channel installed by the vast majority of users. And like I said before, most people just call this Chrome. Anyway, one thing to bear in mind here, within each release channel, there are multiple versions at any one time. But they each keep the same major number throughout one release cycle. So while I was writing the script for this video, Chrome Stable was on version 101, Chrome Beta was on 102, Chrome Dev and Chrome Canary were different versions of 103. Now, if you're actually curious about the version you're using, take a look at the Chrome version page. You can see in each Chrome channel what the version is and, you know, observe how that changes over time. Now, Chrome engineers have access to some other mechanisms to help enable new features and fixes to be rolled out quickly and safely. I'm talking about field trials, telemetry and components. Chrome is designed so that some new features can be enabled or disabled with field trial flags. So here's how it works. The Chrome browser application running on your device periodically checks Chrome's back-end servers to see if there are any changes to field trial flags. Now, depending on the flags returned by the server to the browser, features can be turned off or turned on in Chrome running on your device. For Chrome, field trials are also called Chrome variations. Microsoft has a similar system for the Edge browser called ECS. The Chrome variations mechanism enables new features to be enabled for some Chrome users and not others and turned off if necessary. You can find out more from our upcoming video, what are Chrome variations? So now, whenever rollout begins for a new feature, the Chrome team, of course, watches very carefully for user feedback. But Chrome also uses what's called telemetry to check for unexpected behavior. The Chrome application automatically monitors itself and sends reports to the Chrome back-end servers. And this telemetry data might include memory usage, page load times, or the usage of a browser feature. Data can be compared for the group of users who have a new feature and the control group of those who don't. And that way, if something problematic happens with a new feature, Chrome engineers can turn it off while they're working on a fix. Chrome also uses components. For example, Chrome has a module to enable playback of copyrighted video. Components can be updated automatically without needing the browser to be restarted. And that's particularly important for security features. Now, Chrome doesn't just release a new version to all users and hope for the best. Instead, Chrome uses what are called staged rollouts. Now, that means that initially, only a small number of users for each release channel get an update, maybe only like 1% to 5% to start with, gradually building up to 100%. If something goes wrong, the rollout is paused while the Chrome team works out how to fix the problem, either by turning off an experimental feature, updating a component, or shipping a code update which is called a re-spin. So how can you install a different version of Chrome? Well, that's easy. Just go to the Chrome release channel page and download whichever version you want for desktop or mobile. You can install them all if you really want. And by the way, you might be wondering what Chromium is. Well, Chromium is the open-source browser project on which Chrome and other browsers are based, including Edge, Samsung, Internet, and Brave. Browsers have become so complex to build and maintain that basing the code on an open-source project has become a common pattern. For example, the Safari browser uses WebKit. And Chrome adds some additional features to Chromium, such as additional video codecs, support for copyright content, and automatic updates. Now, you can even install Chromium itself if you want. Just bear in mind that using Chromium as your browser can be a bit of a roller coaster. One last thing. You might also have heard of Blink. Now, that's the layout engine or rendering engine used to transform webpage code and resources into the pages that you see and interact with. And likewise, V8 is the open-source engine developed by the Chromium project to run JavaScript code. Anyway, speaking of automatic updates, well, how does that work? Well, as some of you like me might be old enough to remember, software releases used to happen quite rarely, maybe only every few years even. And you know, you had to buy updates and install them yourself. It's a real pain. Anyway, Chrome gets updated frequently and automatically. And you know, you don't need to download anything yourself or do anything special to update Chrome, except to restart the browser. You might see an update button in Chrome if there's an update available and you haven't restarted for a while. Our major updates happen in Chrome Stable every four weeks and minor updates more frequently. New versions are not just about adding new features, of course. Yeah, we also need to fix bugs, make improvements to existing features, make code more efficient, and make sure to remove code that's no longer needed. Fast update cycles are particularly important to keep users secure and safe from new types of attack as they happen. Enterprise customers can try out new versions of Chrome in Canary, Beta or Dev, and maintain control over software rollout to their staff. And if you're wondering about Chromebooks, well, the operating system they use, Chrome OS, works much the same way. If you're feeling adventurous, so you know, you want to try out features, early on, you can switch your Chromebook to a different Chrome OS channel. So that's how Chrome release channels work. If you want to find out more, take a look at the article here. And if you really love this stuff, there's even a blog about Chrome releases. You can keep track of the very latest versions of Chrome and actually view the code that got changed between versions. Anyway, thanks for watching and be sure to check out the other videos in the Chrome Concepts series. I'll see you in the next one. Bye.


So I really wanna try that cool transition when you're like rolling across your bed and you do something like that and you pull your hoodie off and you change outfits but I don't have two legs so I can't do it but I'm wondering if I can do the flippy trick with my nubbin. Let's find out. I am not a trained professional. Do not try this at home. That was close.   Success!


How's it going everyone Caleb here with late in sports cards. We're gonna be working on legacy football here Six box break number four random team style. Thanks again everyone for joining results right here. Let's get it going Here we go Let's do it. Let's do it Good luck everyone Before last one of the legacy footballs this evening Okay, sure There's no like insert in the box. So the packs were just at the bottom Sure Why not big hit I guess maybe Brian or locker There he is to 299 Delfts Clark Carson strong mini of Elvin Kamara. It's a 50 on the mini Reggie Wayne Nice mini there since Yeah, that's like you tried and you try that's all you can do sometimes 400 points there right at the end on the points last card there was a Bo Jackson Cards are all flipped around since I wanted to grab that points There's the rest one Random talk the end of the points Haskins there. I say a spiller. No, it's good I was just sewn into the legacy. I guess Shannon sharp this time number to 50 no harm As long as I remember by like the end of the night They don't wake up with like four emails Yeah, I mean not that it's a hard fix, but it's better to take care of it right away. That's for sure Drake London under the lights. I say a spiller So they're not numbered Yes It's gonna be Alec Pierce this time on the rookie patch auto Alec Pierce I can't remember on the team. I'll check that right now Alec Pierce it's gonna be Colts there you go Colts Nice rookie patch auto that we've got a to 100 a mod gardener You go to 100 sauce for the Jets Nice sauce Christian Watson orange George Kettle that time not Numbered to 125 Numbers in a different spot again It's like there's no way that's not It was it was numbered breeze hall again Nick foals on the for the ages there. He is catching the Philly special what a card Very cool card Yo Eagles Kenny Pickett base Crystal Lave Chrome Orange this time Micah Parsons to 199. Nice. It's gonna be a Brett Farr On the dare to tear Nice retired dare to tear Interesting that's not numbered Nice one there dare to tear congrats Packers Sean Alexander So yeah, if the order was placed before 3 a.m. Eastern time it will rip Orange there Daxdon Hill to 149 The farthest number I see How are you supposed to Turn it upwards with the blue tip up. It's a man up here. Oh, what's that? I'm saying and it's in that like What? Why would they do that? He's supposed to read that. Oh my good. Why would they do that? You would see oh my oh My god, no actual way It is numbered Why why did they do that? It's 43 of 65 It's 43 of 65. I'm sorry guys. I don't know how I missed it. Here we go. I don't know how I missed it Like I was saying this just a couple packs ago The numbering on this place has been literally all over the cart like sometimes it's on the top the bottom Kenneth Walker not numbered mini But that was uh, yeah, that was a really creative spot for it. I'll tell you that Evan Neil there nice one Giants.  That was something man. Holy cow. I was like you guys serious. That's numbered I was like looking all over for it to Traylon Burks. I was like that's weird dare to tear is not numbered It's like that's strange, but makes sense. I guess maybe there's a lot of them and then yeah sure enough These Reggie Wayne there Sneaky Sam Howell Alec Pierce I Bet you could find a card or two on eBay. That's not identified as a numbered card from this set Bet you could it's a 100 Zeke Cowboys Garrett Wilson, you've got an orange Matt Corral nice orange That is to 125 You go Panthers nice it little orange mini person strong face Cool product, but man like what is up with that? Under the lights of Brian Robinson. I must ask what's up with that? Get a red this time to 299 David Bell the red West Welker This time it's numbered to 50 Alec Pierce Colts another Colts it you go Colts There's a Sam Howell base Autograph Josh Jacobs to 25 Raiders They go Raiders this card for you there Vilas Jones Jr. Juan Dale Robinson David Bell Malik Willis Chrome You go Titans nice Willis Chrome and yellow to 150 is Dan Pholis Her fouts excuse me and there. Let's keep going everyone. Good luck We get a 400 points ramp to all the ends another one. That'll be the same random there a couple of those now Crystal Lavae Hutchinson Bailey's app Matt Corral The 125 on the Nick falls for the ages. I said card there We got another one. Yep wolf pack Carson strong nice one dare to tear very nice on the Carson strong There you go, that's beautiful these eagles wolf pack Carson strong is Eagles nice one there Eagles. Congrats. That is numbered 33 of 65 much better location that time Like what even there you go Eagles nice hits the dare to tear rookie. It's unreal Can't believe that other one still Orange Kieran Williams for the Rams to 149 nice one Rams Herbert Kenny pick it red nice to 299. There you go Steelers nice pick it Red that time Pick it base and it's gonna be a cave on Thibodeaux. It'll be orange orange to 125 on the mini Thibodeaux timeless talents of my home's David Bell sky more Kenneth Walker. We got a green to 100 Phil Sims Oh Man That would be it right there Said all right. I got a call to quits.   That's rookie patch auto solid there on the Shakir I don't want to say the wrong thing. I'm pretty sure it's bills bills Devo That's orange Mike Evans to 199. Yeah, we've got a Jermaine Johnson. It's gonna be mini to 75 on the bronze There you go Jets Xbox up Alrighty everyone good luck on the second half of the break mini to get the first pack going is sky more Chiefs not numbered I Brat with the with the extra loud boom Son haskins Titans there on the silver rookie auto nice Yeah Shilling rain is so It's a tough set to hit him Yeah under the lights Justin Jefferson. Yeah, still a really good set. She's tough to hit him There's about 10 to 12 really nice cards from the 7 that all still sell very well-graded to 199 Devin Lloyd The pole rates on it give it a bad taste. I think in people's mouth, but yeah, it's well put together Bailey's that to 150 nice yellow there Patriots There you go on the yellow This is what I'm talking about Jmart Delvin cook Evan Neil Isaiah Spiller. It's gonna be a drum Ford chrome Chris Olava We have Miles Sanders to 299 Eagles The Sanders mini this time is Devin Lloyd There you go Jaguars on the mini Number to 50 You go to 50 Eli burrow and boomer Christian Watson to 149 Packers Chrome to 149 Go Packers You've got a hit for the chiefs this time George Carl Aftis Rookie Silver Auto not numbered listen Williams Under the lights Kenneth Walker He said I will take all chiefs. He says in another Bailey's app to 299 that time. He go again J marks Two more guys two more. Alrighty. Good luck everyone. So lobby starting out with a mini here John Michi. That's Texans To 75 you go There was also Chronicles draft picks that came out already Elias But this is the second product of the year. I believe that's 2022 football Khalil Shakir number to 50. There you go another one bills to 50 Henry Tyler Gordon hollow there or silver See at Chronicles draft picks was three or four weeks ago There's an orange of Matt Stafford to 199 Here in Williams this time Rams rookie auto you go Rams Name it Yeah, one of Elias one of Marshall Falk I say a spiller Chargers That's green Darnell Mooney to 100 Curtis Martin Kenny Pickett base Mini Isaiah spiller Chargers there to 125 You go Chargers Wanda ill David Bell Before the ages insert there I saw yeah, we're like geez you're loud We had to toss it on that corral Yeah, that was nice We were just having the talk of how shilling rain is a great set but really tough to hit in someone hundred on the Marshall Falk Carson strong Yeah, that was a good hidden almanac. Yep. Yeah, that's So you love to hear on an almanac. So you love to hear Yeah Trent Mcduffie and the Jalen Tolbert's Let me go guys one box to go down. It's gonna be a Bailey zap in red to 299 Travis Kelsey Last one guys last one. Let's do it right here. We go Many have chased young that time. That's to 75. There you go football team or commanders nice Rogers Yeah, Randy that can definitely be hit or miss as well hidden fates Carson strong McCaffrey That's an Andrew booth that time Yeah, there's like I said, there's so much besides it though, so you don't have to Time machines Tony Gonzalez to 100 It's kind of like the first of its kind of modern Pokemon to have a set where it's like There's like eight to ten different cards to chase after that someone could realistically like have as their favorite card in the Set most Pokemon sets up until then were only like one to three cards that you would realistically really be looking for After chilling rain, they really kind of challenged that going forward with chilling rain evolving skies fusion strike And then they rolled it right into brilliant stars astral radiance and yes, Pokemon go is kind of more back to the Just a couple of the chase but since that alternate era alternate art era started it has gotten quite a bit better To 149 cardinals in my opinion and that's a breeze hall nice one there on the cracked ice. That's to 25 you go jets But yeah, it was kind of the first of its kind because like shortly before Chilling rain you could think of a set like vivid voltage where you're literally just looking for like one card the Pikachu Rainbow rare But they really challenged it with chilling rain where it's like all right. There's a bunch you can look for Let's see how the value holds and it did Sam Howell Into 299 her locker Value of those big hits and high grade is still very strong For the price of a box That's a Khalil Shakir that time. That's blue On the mini that is numbered to 20 Nice one bills with a blue color match and Eagles Jordan Davis auto orange You go Jordan Davis Eagles Solid there keep going Under the lights of Herbert's Light blue this time Devonte Adams for the Raiders to 25 Raiders card there another zap DK Maccalf Kenny pick it face Under the lights of Aiden Hutchinson Nice one there in the Hutchinson you kill Good stuff for you lions It's a Raiders card goes to the Raiders Says Raiders on the card How about this one three of five?  There you go. Congrats again on that. That is three of five Nasty patch on there. There's a far Last pack here Is miles Garrett to 199 Go Browns So yeah Packers Jersey, but Raiders on the card and the logo That's what we go by All right guys, let's do a recap. Thanks again. I appreciate it Yeah, we go by the logo in the team on the car They do that sometimes though. We'll have the players still in their old Jersey a lot of the times when they do that They also have on the top right here traded to Yeah, no problem. That's a it's a pretty confusing thing Especially on products like this where there can be those recent trade acquisitions and stuff like that All right, here we go. Let's do a recap here guys Jordan Davis got a Kieran Williams Khalil Shakir George Carlaftis a son Haskins It's a Clio Shakir Josh Jacobs Evan Neil. There's a Brett Farr. That's dare to tear in it is numbered to 65 Alec Pierce nice one there and the Sam Howell 2019 military Bowl. Yeah, I could see something like that honestly It says not from any specific game or event But yeah, I could see that MI and then that looks like the start of a B So I could definitely see that really nice card there and thanks again everyone. Hope you did enjoy it We do have a random here for 400 points two of them actually the top two spots are each you get 400 I'll take a pic in a second. You can priority it. Yeah Let me get this random set up and go one quick guys This is gonna be a 400 points times two top two spots are each gonna get 400 Legacy number for 28 different names all back into the randomizer 400 to the top spot and the second spot You can win more than once if you have multiple entries seven here we go One two three four five six seven Jonathan B and Nicole L. Congrats. There you go. Very nice Jonathan B and Nicole L Appreciate you all for joining. We'll be on to some football next tonight


Hello and welcome to Hands in the Dirt. I'm Megan Humphrey, executive director of Hands, and we are a nonprofit in Burlington, Vermont. Our mission is to get food to adults 50 years and over. We provide these Hands in the Dirt gardening workshops with the famous Charlie Nardosi and Meal and gift bag delivery on Christmas Day all over the county. A nutrition education program called Hands in the Kitchen and also Support Buddies, which is a program in partnership with Heineberg Senior Center and lots of other organizations to get healthy groceries and meals to seniors. And we want to give special thanks to AARP Vermont and Hannaford for their sponsorship of Hands in the Dirt. So thank you so much for joining us. And Charlie, please take it away. Today, what we're going to be doing is companion planting. And companion planting is one of those topics that everyone has heard about and everyone's talked about. But they really are really kind of confused about does it work, does it not work, what works. So I'm going to try to tackle it pretty quickly here. And then we'll talk a little bit more about it as well. So let me share my screen. And we will dive right in to the presentation. So companion planting is something we, as I mentioned, we've all heard about, you know, the books by Louise Riotti, Tomatoes, Love Carrots, that kind of thing. But most of that information that was in that book and many other books and many other websites is more folklore information, kind of personal information, individual experiences gardening. It isn't something that necessarily has been scientifically proven across a broad spectrum. But that is changing. And more and more researchers are looking into this idea of companion planting. They're not calling it that so much. They're calling it by a lot of different names. But really, it's the same idea that you're planting this plant next to this other plant for a benefit of both of the plants. And what we're going to do is kind of dive a little bit into this and find out some of this new research that's out there around the idea of companion planting. So the new ideas behind companion planting are scientific. They have been studied by state universities, international universities and research institutions. And so they have a broader base to them, a little more critical eye on them than just it worked in my garden. It should work in your garden. They also are more of an ecosystem approach. And this is really more of like an ecological approach to gardening than just simply this plant should be planted next to that plant. It's really much more of a broader approach that a lot of these researchers are looking at and a lot of the gardeners are looking at where we're taking a look at your garden, not as a separate system as opposed to everything else in your yard, but something that's integrated into the shrubs you have, into the flowers you have, even into the lawn areas you might have and grassy areas you might have. All of those play an important role in the health of your garden and the health of your plants in your garden. And the emphasis is on relationships. So how are these plants working together? And this I can do a whole talk just on this. And I think I've mentioned it maybe in past talks about soils, for example, and how the relationships of plants in the soil really benefit a number of different plants and a number of different microbes and other kinds of species. So this new idea with companion planting is really going beyond just a simple plant this and not plant that, but really looking at the whole garden as an ecosystem. So to that end, we really want to diversify our plantings in our garden, especially if you're thinking of it just in terms of my vegetable garden. And that's really how a lot of us have garden for many years. We have the vegetable garden, we have the flower garden, we have the shrub border, you know, we have some trees, we have the lawn, everything is separate, right? But this is a photo, an old photo from friends of mine used to live up in Craftsbury had a perennial flower garden. And this is their kitchen garden. This is a vegetable garden. And this is what it looked like when in the middle of the summer, you look at it, you think of it as a flower garden, right? But because they love flowers, they integrated flowers throughout that garden. If you look closely, you'll see beans and cauliflower and Swiss chard and onions and things of that nature. But this idea of having a diversity of plantings in the garden. So you're attracting beneficial insects, you're attracting all kinds of critters, and you're keeping an ecological balance in the soil and among the plants is going to help your plants grow better. Because it's all about plant relationships and certain plants do do better next to each other or help each other, not just in the sense that it's going to repel an insect, but maybe help each other in other ways too. Some of that might have to do with the plants themselves as far as fitting better in the garden together, you know, not competing with each other. And some of it might be one plant helping another plant in that garden. And of course, by integrating flowers and herbs into your garden, you're going to be attracting pollinators and beneficials. And this is really a critical thing that we're all very concerned about is helping our pollinating insects. And the way to do that to not only help the pollinating insects, but help your garden is to grow a variety of perennial and annual flowers in that garden. So you could bring them in these umbil type flowers, like you're seeing here that yarrow, that pink flowers, a yarrow, some yellow one there too, actually. That's a really good example of a flower that's a real nice pollinator plant. Pollinators love those flat umbil kind of flowers, and they tend to frequent there.  They're going to be doing other kinds of benefits for you and your garden. A lot of this information is in a book that you might want to take a look at. It's called Plant Partners. It's written by Jessica Walliser. And this is a book that just came out this year, and she's a gardening colleague, garden writer colleague of mine. And she did a great job highlighting all the science-based companion planting strategies that she found by doing an extensive research all around the world, from all around the world. So that's a cool book to check out called Plant Partners. So what are we going to do today? So we're going to talk just kind of a slice of this companion planting topic because it could go on and on. But I'm going to talk about companion planting and the idea of sharing space, so your plants that can live together because they grow a little bit differently. And the same with nutrients, sharing nutrients in the garden, maybe helping each other out. And then finally, we'll talk about controlling insects. And I'll highlight some of that research that I've been talking about that's out there as far as what plants are going to help you control insects in your garden. So we were sharing space, you know, often we don't really think about plants as holding different spaces in the garden, but they really do. Some plants, of course, are creeping. Some of them are more upright, like all these kales and Swiss chards here. Some of them will grow vertically, like a pole bean. These plants can be planted together much closer and much more integrated than you would normally think about. And what's nice about that is that these plants are not going to outcompete each other, but they're going to complement each other and you'll need less growing space. And we all love that idea as we're trying to minimize the amount of gardens we have to take care of, the amount of beds we have to take care of. If we can grow more intensively and grow the right plants next to each other because they're sharing a space, that's going to help us in a lot of fronts. One thing, of course, is we can grow vertically and certainly peas, we have ours in the ground already, pole beans would be ones, but there are other plants such as summer squash like this zucchini here. This was a shot from France on one of my garden tours. And what they did is they trellised it up a fence, a vertical fence. They trellised it up, of course they attached it with ties to hold it up and they have their zucchini. So you can get varieties of zucchini that naturally will run a little bit. I grow an old Italian heirloom called trombocino. Trombocino. And trombocino is a vining summer squash. So I grow it like this. I grow it up the fence around our garden and it produces these big long fruits. But you can even use things like the old-fashioned heirloom early crooknecks, the yellow squashes. They kind of run a little bit too. Any squash it runs a little bit, you can trellise vertically. You could do this of course with cantaloupes too. With small watermelons it'll work as well. So taking advantage of the vertical space in your garden is one way to maximize that space. Of course the three sisters garden is probably one that's most common. Most people are familiar with where they're growing corn, beans, and squash. This is actually two sisters. I think they don't have the squash in there. But anyway you get the idea that they're growing beans up those corn stalks. So that idea of using plants that are already vertical as a support for existing plants is a good one. Sunflowers. It's another great one to grow. So you can plant your sunflowers. This is a little sunflower house on the left there. A great little activity to do with kids and grandkids. Because you plant a ring of sunflowers around a little area inside. Then maybe you create a little sitting area in there for a little privacy. And as those sunflowers you want to use like the Russian mammoths, the big ones. As they get big they're going to flop over a little bit and create this beautiful kind of little ceiling and roof over the kids. And you can add to it by planting pole beans on the outside. Or like that plant on the right there in the trellis. That's called Malabar spinach. That is a type of spinach that loves the heat. And it's a beautiful plant. You can see the red stems to it. And beautiful delicious leaves that you can eat right through the summer. Because it wants, it actually needs the heat. It's not something that's going to grow well in cool weather. But you can grow some of those around those sunflowers. Maybe up to the sunflowers or up a couple feet tall. Plant your beans around them, your Malabar spinach, anything. Cardinal flower, morning glories, whatever it is. And they'll just climb up as those sunflower stalks grow. And they'll create this beautiful kind of colorful area in your garden. Maximizing again how much of what you're growing in a small space. You can also do a thing called interplanting. And interplanting really takes advantage of the plant's growth characteristics. So for example, and here you see that cabbage down there in the bottom left. It's surrounded by cilantro and by nigella, which is an annual flower. Those have very ferny foliage to them. They don't get very big. So you can really pack them really very closely. The tall burgundy colored plants are amaranth. And those are going to get tall. So they can kind of stretch up higher. So you can use plants that have different heights and different characteristics as far as the leaf goes to really work to your advantage in the garden. Another way of doing this is what we call succession planting. So there's no reason to just grow one crop in your garden or in your bed, unless it's a long season crop, like a tomato or an eggplant or a pepper or a squash, like a winter squash, not so much summer squash. But if you're growing most any other things, if you're growing leafy greens, if you're growing beans, if you're growing some annual herbs, you can do this in a succession. So for example, this person had lettuce growing there. And you know, as they harvest the lettuce, they're making space to plant other things, some herbs in there, some broccoli or cabbages. You can do this with cool season, warm season and cool season crops.  Then when they're done, say in by June, then you can plant bush beans, put a nice little crop of bush beans in there. After a few months, they're done by late August, you can plant in some fall crops like kale and maybe come back to some of these greens like spinach, for example, and have those going right into October, November. So by doing that, you get three crops in that one spot in your garden. And if you do that for multiple places, you can see how you can maximize the production. Or you can do something a little more intensive called polyculture. This is something we did in one of our beds last summer. This is one of our tomato beds, has those vertex gardener supply tomato cages around it. And you can see I have about four tomatoes in there. And of course, when you plant tomatoes, you're planting them about three feet apart. So there's all the space in between the plants when they're young. I had this old salad mix that had a mix of lettuces and spinach and mizuna and Swiss chard, beets, and even had some basil, I think in it. So I just took the seed and I just sprinkled it all around the tomatoes, all around them. And this is what it looked like a month later. And you could see we have all these greens that we've been harvesting and eating. The tomatoes don't look any worse for the wear. They're growing really strongly. And it's protecting the soil too. So it's kind of like a cover crop. So you don't have to weed anything, right? You're just going to eat what's growing between those tomatoes. What we ended up doing is that I left those plants, those salad plants in there, as those tomatoes were growing because eventually they got so big that they've shaded everything out. Some of them died off. Some of them flowered, which was a nice thing and brought more beneficial insects in. But the best part is I never had to weed that bed because I had all these other edible plants in there. This is called a polyculture. And there's lots of ways to do this. Another way is to match the foliage. Like I was talking about here's a bed of ours that had celery in the foreground and that tall, ferny stuff is all dill. So I let some dill kind of self sow in there. Actually there's some fennel in there too. And you can see those, the ferny foliage kind of hangs above the celery. Doesn't really shade it, but you don't have that competition there. The celery grows well. The dill grows well. So it's the idea of mixing and matching plants together that have complementary growth characteristics. Another way of approaching this is to share the nutrients. So this is all about where the roots are going. So for example, that kale plant and that plant on the right, which is Brussels sprouts, they have pretty deep extensive root systems. If you plant them next to a Swiss chard or a Kohlrabi, that little red knobby thing in the bottom there, that's a Kohlrabi. Those have shallower roots. So what happens is that the deep roots mine the minerals, mine all the nutrients deeper in the soil.  Whereas a Swiss chard and a Kohlrabi might only go down four inches or so into the soil. You can do this with a variety of plants so that they're not competing with each other. You can do it in a way also so that they're sharing nutrients. So this is an example from our garden last year. We had our peas growing nicely on that trellis and peas, of course, are a legume and they fix nitrogen. And I used to think that you have to let the plant go to maturity and die before that nitrogen is released in the soil. Now the research is showing that in fact it's released into the soil even as the peas are growing. So that makes it an opportunity for any kind of leafy green plant that you're growing around that to harvest that nitrogen in the soil and grow well, just like that red lettuce that we're growing right next to those peas. So that idea of sharing those nutrients back and forth, you know, I did something similar to this with beans and onions. I forgot to take a picture of it of course. You get busy in the summer. So I had bush beans and in between the two rows of bush beans, I put a whole crop of onions, or I think I did it with leeks one year too. And the idea is that you have that ferny foliage, you know, the leek or the onion foliage kind of above the beans, not really shading that. The beans are shading the soil, keeping the soil nice and moist, and they're fixing nitrogen so that those onions and those leeks will be taking up the nutrients. The other thing I just thought about of course is the roots are at different levels. Beans have a deeper root than an onion would. So that kind of intercropping allows you to plant more plants in a smaller space and you can plant them close together and they don't out-compete each other. Last year I did it with edamame and fall greens. So I had rows of edamame, edible soybeans, green soybeans, and in between that I put transplants of kale. Now for the first month or so, the edamame of course grew big and the kale got a little shaded and I had to push them apart a little bit. I think I might space them a little separate, a little more wider apart next time. But the kale survived and it did okay. But by the time I chopped down all that edamame and just let the kale come up, well the kale just took over. So I had the edamame that we ate in August. After I took that down a week or so later you saw the kale just explode with the cooler weather of September and we had that all fall. So the idea of mixing and matching plants and again that's a legume and a green that works really well. So that sharing of nutrients is a nice thing to keep in mind. It also happens when you use cover crops on plants like tomatoes and egg plants. So this is a study in California where they grew cow peas, you know black eyed peas, things of that nature. They grow here. They grow very well here actually. But you can do this with other plants. You can do this with beans probably too. They planted those around the tomatoes around the egg plants which are heavy nitrogen feeders and they saw a dramatic difference in the growth of those tomatoes and egg plants. They grew much better, grew much stronger. They did it with peppers I think too. So the idea behind this is that you're fixing that nitrogen for the plants that are next to it and they still got the cow peas because the peas of course mature later into the fall. So sharing spaces and sharing nutrients are really great. How about controlling insect pests? That's really what we think about when we think about companion planting and planting different ones together. There's a lot of misconceptions. So for example, the marigold misconception. I should write a book on that. Marigold misconceptions. Because a lot of people think and they always ask me, can I plant marigolds next to my, you name it, tomatoes, peppers, whatever it is to keep the insects away? And the answer is no. You can plant them and they're going to look beautiful and there'll be a nice piece in your ecological garden but they're not necessarily going to keep insects away. In fact, the only thing that they found that marigolds will do is that their roots will exude a substance that will inhibit nematodes from growing. We don't really have to deal with nematodes where we live. So it's really not that beneficial. I still grow them. I still put them in our garden. They're beautiful. They attract beneficials but they're not going to be taking care of insects in there. But there are combinations that do work. I want to share those with you now. So the companion planting methods are not just about planting one flower to repel an insect. There's lots of ways to do it. You can do companion planting methods where you're trapping with other plants. So you can plant something that is really attractive to a certain insect more so than the other plant you're planting. So they go there instead, right? I'll talk about that in detail. Luring pests. You can lure pests in so they get trapped, like I was just saying, or you can lure them away from your garden with other kinds of plants. Masking plants versus repelling insects. So we mostly think of flowers or companion plants as something that's going to repel an insect that's coming in. But really how it mostly works is it's going to mask the scent of the plant that they're looking for. So there's been a number of research studies about ways that these plants can mask the scent of another plant so that when a fly is coming over or a butterfly, they can't sense it. They can't basically smell it even though it's not the more of a pheromone thing. But they can't really sense where that plant is so they don't find the broccoli plant. They don't find the potato plant. So it's really about masking the scent more than repelling the insect. So with trap crops, let's talk a little bit about this. So the idea about trap crops is that, again, you're planting something that's more desirable than the other plant you have. And a great example of this would be something like squash. So you can plant certain varieties of squash on the outside perimeter of your garden that are going to attract squash bugs and squash vine borers because they really love that variety. And the ones you have in the middle of your garden, they may not even find or even bother with. So you will be planting it on kind of the edge. Another way to do trap crops, depending on the insect, is planting them really side by side. You know, you can plant some trap crops right in a row right next to the other crop. And because that insect doesn't really spread very far, they'll stay on that trap crop. The key thing with trap crops though is timing and size. So you want to make sure that your trap crop is there growing and is attractive, all dressed up, ready to go out the town, at the right size before your desirable crop. Because if you put them in at the same time, and they're both growing at the same rate, then they're probably going to go to your plant as well as the trap crop. So you want to have the trap crop in a little bit earlier. And it's a push-pull thing, like I was mentioning about luring plants in or luring pests away. So some examples of them, and I'll go through these in a little more detail. Squash bugs and vine borers on squashes, I mentioned that, flea beetles, everyone knows flea beetles, with radishes and bok choy as a trap crop, and pepper maggots. And I'm so sure people have too many problems with those, but we'll talk a little bit about them for with hot and sweet peppers. So squash bugs and squash borers, vine borers, one type of squash that they really like, and they will go after time and time again, is blue-hubbered squash. This makes an excellent trap crop. If you have problems with squash bugs and squash vine borers on your butternut squash, acorn squash, even on your zucchini squash and your summer squashes, you know, yellow summer squashes, for example. If you put in some blue-hubbered squash plants, again, you want to make sure they're in there a good week or so before your other plants, so that they're up and growing, they're in a more mature stage, you put them on the perimeter of your garden. Don't put them right next to your other plants, because they'll move around. Put them on the perimeter, you'll see that they'll feast on that. They will go there. Then you have a choice. You know, once you see that the plants are getting decimated by squash bugs or squash vine borers, you can just pull that plant right out and then, you know, put it in a black plastic bag, sit it on a tarmac or somewhere where it's going to get really hot and it'll kill not only the plant but all the bugs that are in it too. So that would be one way to do it. Some people just leave them there, let them do their whole life cycle there. It's probably not a great idea, because then they will overwinter and you'll have even more of them next year. But it's a great way to pull them away from the garden.  Flea beetles, you probably will see these if you put out seedlings of broccoli or bok choy or if you have little radishes germinating already, they're probably already out there munching on them.  That's why they call them flea beetles. They love a lot of those plants. They love anything in that broccoli family, but they also love like egg plants. I've seen them on pepper plants. I've seen them on flowers, even my marigold got decimated one year by flea beetles. They'll go after a whole bunch of plants, but they really like radishes and bok choy. And there was a study that they did, I believe it was in Iowa, where they planted rows of these. So they had rows of like broccoli plants, which they like or egg plants. And then in between, they planted this trap crop row of bok choy and radishes. And again, they put them in early so that the bok choy and radishes were up and growing before the other plants. And what they found is that the flea beetles flocked there and, excuse me, decimated those plants, but by the time those other plants that they wanted to have come up came up, they were fine because the flea beetles were kind of right focused on the bok choy and the radishes. What you can do in that situation, if you're really nervous about it, because they're so close, is you can get some diatomaceous earth. And this way you're just going to be spraying the diatomaceous earth just on the bok choys and the radishes and not on everything around there. And that way you'll kill the flea beetles that way. So flea beetles are a little bit different because they don't move around like a squash bug wheel or a Colorado potato beetle wheel. And so you can trap them really close to the plants that you're trying to grow. And then the pepper maggots is another one that's out there.  And then inside there may be a little worm that's in there. You'll see them definitely towards the end of the season. Grow some hot peppers. Grow hot peppers right next to your sweet peppers. So we get so regimented with how we plant our vegetables and flowers. We put all the peppers here. We put all the tomatoes there. We put the hot peppers here. We put the sweet peppers there. Mix and match them because they're going to help each other. In this case, the pepper maggot is repelled or is actually the pepper maggot tries to come in and go after the hot peppers.  They did this study in Connecticut and it showed that they had less problems with pepper maggots when they integrated this hot pepper with the sweet pepper. So another way that this works as far as controlling insects is masking the smell, which prevents egg laying. It's not so much masking the smell for the adults that they're not going to smell them. Or once they have the larvae feeding on them, they won't stop eating. But it stops the pest from laying eggs. And that's really kind of an important thing. And one of the best examples of this, which a lot of people are excited about, this was an Iowa State study, is squash bugs on zucchini. So you probably have seen squash bugs not only on zucchini, but on, I know that was the study they did was on zucchini. But I'm assuming it's going to work just as well on summer squash, on melons, on winter squash.  And what they found is that the smell on nasturtiums, nasturtiums have a smell. We know that. They're edible flowers too. They have a taste and a smell. The smell of those nasturtiums confused the squash bugs. So when they were trying to find the squash plants to lay their eggs, they wouldn't find them. They found they had far fewer squash bug eggs and squash bug bugs on the zucchini if they grew the nasturtiums in there. Now a caveat, of course, with this is that you again have to have the nasturtiums established earlier before your squash plants are growing. So you might want to delay your squash planting a little bit. And also it's got to be in an area of garden where you haven't had a lot of squash bugs. If you put it in a place that's been infested with squash bugs and you haven't cleaned it up well, they're going to still be there regardless of the nasturtiums. But this is an exciting thing. I think I'm going to try in our garden this year, just planting a bunch of nasturtiums around the squash and see if we can kind of delay the squash bug infestation. Another one we always see now, this type of this year, in the mid-summer, mid-to-late summer, you know, used to be we rarely had a lot of tomato hornworms. But I think with climate change, some of these more exotic pests are becoming more regular in our gardens. So the tomato hornworm, of course, will come in overnight, will decimate the tops of plants. And what they found in one research study is that by growing basil plants around your tomatoes, so we're talking tall basil, like the Genevieve say basil, planting, you know, four or five plants around, basil plants around each tomato plant, letting them grow up, giving them enough space, of course, especially if you're growing big tomatoes, you're going to have to train those tomatoes a bit so they don't get too big and floppy because they'll just shade out the basil. But letting them grow up in there, they have again an odor, a pheromone, a scent, that the tomato hornworm adult moth that's going to come in and try to lay its eggs gets confused, can't find the tomato. So in this study, they've had far fewer problems with tomato hornworms just by planting basil around their tomato plants. So there's a number of different examples coming out of that plant partners book that I mentioned earlier, this idea of masking the scent, thrips, which is probably something most people don't even realize they have on tomatoes and in basil. That tomato-basal combination works really well to repel thrips, too. Colorado potato beetle, if you can grow tansy or cat mint around your potato plants, they do not like the smell of those.   I did that one years ago in our house that was loaded with ants and repel them. Within a day, they're all gone. It just doesn't like the smell. So the same thing is happening with the Colorado potato beetle adult. As it comes in looking for the potato plants or looking for an eggplant, they love eggplant, too. If it has that tansy smell or a cat mint plant next to it, that's going to repel them so they don't lay their eggs there. Now, of course, this leads to a question you might be thinking about. So Colorado potato beetles are on potato plants that you dig up at the end of the season. Tansy and cat mint are perennials. So how do you do that? And you have to be kind of clever about it. You know, you might have rows of tansy or cat mint, and then in between the rows is where you put the potatoes, then you carefully dig up the potatoes in the fall, not bothering those perennials. You have to be a little more careful with it, experiment a little bit to see if it works. If you have a bunch of cabbage worms, any of the thyme, dill, chamomile, any of those really aromatic types of herbs, the cabbage worm butterfly doesn't like the smell of those. So having those growing around your broccoli, your kale, your Brussels sprouts, your cauliflower, your cabbage, anything in that family, these might help repel those insects so they don't lay as many eggs again because of the scent. So you're also trying to lure these beneficials in. We talked about pushing away the bad guys or driving them towards a trap crop, but how about luring in beneficials? Well, there's been some studies for this as well. So aphids, which are a big problem on lots of different plants.  So here they did it around some parsley.  That's the fennel flower, the yellow one there. The fennel is the bulb fennel. And I always grow extras of it so that when it grows up, I let some of those go to seed like this to flower. And they attract a whole host of beneficial insects. A lot of those will attack things like aphids because that's one of their foods. And it'll clean up your garden a little bit. With Colorado potato beetle, if you can have dill and cilantro around them, that again is another one, letting them flower. That's the key, especially with the cilantro and dill. Letting them flower, that's going to attract the different kinds of flies, different kinds of insects that will parasitize these larval stage of the Colorado potato beetle. So it's going to reduce it. The whole thing with this whole companion planting and ecological gardening is that we're not going to eliminate things 100%. That's not natural. That's not what happens in nature. We shouldn't expect that in our garden. But we are going to reduce the damage to a place where it won't be as bothersome and it certainly won't be cutting back on production. So having dill and cilantro in the garden or some dill flowering is a good way to attract beneficials for the Colorado potato beetles. And for general caterpillars in general, carrot and mint family plants. So carrots are like, well, certainly carrots and parsnips and queen ants, lace, aminages is another one. Anything that has that umbil kind of shape, great plants, I was mentioning the fennel and the dills, great plants to attract beneficials. And anything in the mint family. So even the salvias, agastaches, any kinds of mints, anything in that family of plants, we have salvias growing in our garden now. They're going to mimic, not mimic, but they're going to cover the scent of those caterpillars, those caterpillars as they come in to attack your plants. And they'll kind of keep going, moving on. So it looks like something froze on my computer. There we go. To try to keep those caterpillars from feeding on your plants. So we want to preserve these beneficials as much as we can. And another cool thing that was in that book that was very exciting are beetle banks. This is something you may not have ever heard of. Beetle banks are literally a little bit of raised bed where you're growing ornamental grasses that's going to provide perfect habitat for ground beetles. And why do we want to have ground beetles, those black beetles in our garden, because they feast on everything from slugs to caterpillars to larvales of a whole host of different kinds of insects. So how you create a beetle bank is simply you raise up the soil in your garden, maybe in the center or close to where a lot of plants are growing. It could be an 18 inch diameter circle. It doesn't have to be very big. Excuse me, 18 inches high, about a three to four foot wide circle. So it does have to be big.  So things like blue stem grass or switch grass. You want to get the native grasses for this. So you have this three to four foot diameter circle that's raised up about 18 inches. You put four or five plants in there and then you just let them grow. That's all you have to do. The grasses are very attractive to ground beetles, especially the root systems. So they will move in and as they move in, of course, they're going to be wanting to eat. So they will start feeding on all those slugs and other plants that you have in that garden. It's kind of a cool idea. And it's an attractive one because you have these beautiful ornamental grasses in the middle of your garden. In the fall or in the spring, I guess you would do it. You would just cut down those grasses, leave the stalks there as a nice shelter area for those ground beetles, and just let it grow up again. So kind of a fun way to preserve the beneficials. Growing low growing perennials and annuals, these are hiding places for those flies and those bees and those other kinds of insects that might be feasting on those problem pests that you have in the garden. So everything from creeping flocks to calibracoas to mints to thyme to oregano, all kinds of different creeping plants. Having those integrated into your garden is really key because those are hiding places for beneficial insects. And in the other extreme, having a hedgerow, having some evergreens around, some cedar trees or just an informal hedgerow, some shrubs is a good place for a lot of these flies to kind of hang out as they're looking for something to eat. They need a hiding place. They need a place to hang out. So that's another nice thing to integrate into your garden. And of course, with a lot of these perennials, you don't want to be so quick into cutting them down in the spring. You want to leave them there until we've had at least a good four or five days in the 50 degree range. That's when the beneficial insects will kind of wake up and they'll move out and then you can clean up your garden at that point. Don't be cleaning it up in the fall or late winter, wait a little while. It might be messy, but it's going to be good for the beneficial insects. So all of this is there to show that you can have an ecologically sound and a productive garden by integrating different kinds of plants in there and integrating some strategies and using a little knowledge, using a little of your smarts as far as what plants can grow well together, sharing nutrients and sharing space. So thank you very much. I really appreciate you coming out and learning a little bit about companion planting. And of course, we're here every month, so please join us again.


One Sunday school teacher was doing a lesson and she was doing a lesson and she asked this question of the kid She says take a give me an answer. What it is. She says it's gray It likes to climb on trees It's very small It has a furry tail and it eats nuts and the kid one kid roses and he says I know the answer has to be Jesus, but it does sound like a Squirrel So this is a season the reason for this season is Jesus We've been doing a series that is going to come to an end today. It's going to be Jesus series And next week we're going to start a new series that will be called new year new you We believe that Jesus is really the answer to all the fundamental issues of life And Jesus was born around this, uh, you know, we historically celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ and our culture Just come on commemorates this season and this time and we're really really excited for that I'm going to share a few scriptures with us today and a little message on Jesus is God's present to us Or jesus is a manual which means god with us and I hope that it's going to be Relevant and applicable to us also and we're believing for god to do miracles today in our midst Because he's the god of miracles. Amen. Amen.    What does that mean? It will break that in just a moment As humans we were created by god In his image and his likeness, but we were created with the need For god That's why a lot of times preachers say things like there is a god-shaped hole inside of each human being That is longing for god and many times we fill that hole with other things with good things Sometimes we fill it with bad things. Sometimes we fill it with really really bad things But nevertheless that hole it can never be filled unless it's filled with god himself I want to take a look at the first verse And the first excuse me the first chapter of the bible the chapter of genesis The first chapter of the bible first genesis chapter 11 When we were created i want you to see this and god said Let earth bring forth grass The herb that yields seed and the fruit tree that yields fruit according to its kind Who seed is in itself on the earth and verse 12 says the following and the earth brought forth grass I want you to see this The god didn't really create grass the herbs He spoke to the earth and he said to the earth let earth produce herbs and grass And then the earth responding to god's commandment started to do the work and produced herbs and trees And all of the things that we see today And why did god do it like that? Why did god not make the trees? But he told the earth to make the trees to show us a lesson and if my beautiful wife can bring a plant God created The earth and told the earth to produce the plants Why I want you to see a lesson here Because the plants came from the soil The plants they need the soil to live And without the soil these plants they died Right if they won't ladies you would still have your roses But you had to throw them away. Why because they died Anytime you disconnect the plant from its soil it Sees to be alive. It can still be green for a few days Maybe a week perhaps two three, but then afterwards it it withers and it dies Why because the bible says that the plants they came from the soil So let me tell you who created the plants the soil The soil created the plants and therefore the plants need the soil to live They don't go to soil and the weekends For two hours a day. They don't have devotions with the soil. They live in the soil They exist in the soil and without the soil they die. Are you with me? But I want you to see the second thing in Genesis chapter one if we can bring the stand In Genesis chapter one if we read down in verse 20 it says and God said Let the water waters abound with the abundance of living creatures And let birds fly above the earth across the face of the firmament of heavens In verse 21 and God created the great sea creatures and if every living thing that me moves among them So I want you to see that secondly what happened is that God not only he spoke to the ground and says Make sure you produce the plants the plants came and then life came and the plants need the soil to live But God now speaks to the water And God says to the water I want you to produce the fish and the creatures that will live in the water and the bible says the water says Okay, and the water starts producing a living creatures that we call fish And so it's interesting a parallel that you see the fish cannot live without water The fish dies without water. Why because the fish came out of the water Therefore it needs the water to live plants cannot live without the soil because plants came out of the soil Therefore they need the soil to live Is everybody still with me and then God said I want you to see verse 26 Then God said let us make men in our image and our likeness So the same way God was saying let the earth make plants Let the waters make fish and God said let us make men in our image and our likeness So that the same way the plant depends on the soil the fish depends on the water Man will depend on me So if any wasn't here today, I want to let you know maybe you've gotten so maybe educated and so rich and so blessed That you think you don't need God you need God the same way the fish needs water and plants need soil You were created with the God shape hold inside of you that longs and yields and screams for God But many times what we do Is that we fill it with something else? I want to tell you something this this morning this christmas morning. You have a value You are valuable. The reason why is because you came from God It's like that story where the kid went to the father and said dad. Where do we come from? The father said well, we came from monkeys. It's just great The kid goes to the mother and says mom. Where do we come from mom says we came from God The kid was confused Went back to the mother and said mother dad says we came from monkeys. You say we came from God Mom says it's very simple. His family came from monkeys. Our family came from God Because God created us out of himself We already have value Whether we're rich poor Whatever race we have whatever legal status in united states we have Whatever our income right now is no matter how many debts or what sickness we have in our body Even if we don't have all body parts Even if we are crippled even if there is a problem in our mind We already have a value because we came from God You came through your parents, but you came from God That's why even if you never met your parents don't be don't blame them for it because God only used them to get you out But in reality he is the one that created you And because he created you he modeled to us in the first chapter of the book He modeled to us of what we really going to be longing for as humans on this earth We are always going to be drawn to God We can always be looking for that. Why because the way Plants need the soil and the fish needs water is the way humanity needs God But see what sin does is sin goes in And sin takes us out drugs pride and arrogance It takes us out of God It's interesting. I want you to notice a few things happen at the moment. I took this fish out of the water None of you got mad at the fish Everybody's feeling a little bit mad at me Right none of you like man that poor fish should have seen faster No, everyone there's two things two emotions are going through your body Even if you're like I don't care about all the service all the stuff and everything But in reality two emotions going through your body right now through your soul right now The first emotion is this feeling bad for the fish and number two Vlad what the heck are you doing?    God has feelings of love for you He just hates the sin that separates you from him because he knows you were created to live at him Can somebody say amen And I want to tell you something that's why christmas came What christmas is is that you were right here and god is right here And god is saying I want you to be with me See the interesting part is this goldfish right now that's kind of suffocating Struggling and going through a very very difficult time, but it's still alive. It's still right here That's how many people are today in this world. They have education But they're spiritually dying why because they're disconnected They have more degrees than a thermometer, but they're dying Because they're disconnected And they're living in sin, but in reality there's something in them longs for god That's why they go to clubs. That's why some people go to religion That's why some people will go into all kinds of things They will they will do even good works that they try to get to god But see the only thing that is more powerful than the sin that separates you from god is the love of god They can put you back in god Can somebody say amen Well, praise god I want you to notice another lesson Fish only had a limited amount of time Or else it would be too late So do you and I None of us in here Those of us who maybe today are disconnected from god Maybe you have this idea say you know what? Hey, if I just wait, you know what? I really next year is the time I'll give to god What would happen if I would have held this fish till next year You would have said no, let's put it back in right now That's exactly what god is looking at you and saying listen that sin is hurting you come back right now Don't wait next year might not come Tomorrow might be too late Relationship with god is why jesus came humanity is longing for the presence of god And we try to shove it in with so many other things But in reality it is god that we need and it is god at christmas They came to us and says i want to take you back Into my kingdom into my presence out of the hand of sin But I want you to see second thing is that not only We are longing for god. We're also looking for power We've read in genesis and I will read that one more time genesis chapter one and verse 26 Let us make men in our image according to our likeness as we've seen this means we came from god We need god the same way fish needs water and trees need soil Let us make men in our image and our likeness Let them have dominion over the fish of the sea over the birds of the air and over the cattle over all the things that are on The over the things on earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth I want you to see that from the beginning when god made us Not only god made us to live in his presence like this fish is in the water and plants are in soil God wants you to live in him to move in him and in him to have your being God doesn't want you to have him as a religion not have him as an insurance card Not have him as a spare tire Not have him as a something that you do just in case god wants you to live in him to move in him But also when you are in the presence of god, there's something else that's available from the beginning is god says dominion Is available to us and dominion was given to us meaning god from the beginning Not because we went to college and deserved it not because we did something good and earned it But god from the beginning gave us power over our circumstances and gave us power over the devil Now because we were disconnected from god not only we fell into the grip of sin But we also fell into the grip of powerlessness and ever since then humanity has always been searching and looking for power People go to witchcraft to control other people people will get angry and manipulate other people But in reality all of that comes from a desire planted by god for power People practice witchy boards mind control and so many other things Others just simply get drunk to numb things and to cause them to rise above the situations in life But we're all looking for power.  Why because not only the hollywood, but the whole humanity is searching for that We're going to school. We're trying to you know get connections so that we can get ahead so we can overcome We're looking for the greatest advancement of medicine so we can beat cancer tumor and arthritis Why because inside of a humanity that has been deposited a desire to live with power Unfortunately, we can't find that power many times because the power of medicine the power of education The power of connections the power of money all of that power is limited in the face of evil that we face in this world And therefore god in jesus is offering us something that i want you to see today What does it mean? God with us It's always really good to have the bible explain the bible Google cannot explain the bible the bible should explain the bible I don't like to look to tradition for to explain the bible or how i grew up to explain the bible If you want to know what the bible says ask what the bible says And bible will help you to explain the bible i want you to see something right now in Judges chapter 6 verse 13 And i'll read to you gideon said to him so the angel came to gideon gideon is hiding Actually, let's start with genesis 39. I'm sorry genesis 39 Joseph is locked up and sold by his brothers And the lord was with joseph And he was a successful man. So remember what christmas is god immanuel Immanuel So i want you to see what does that mean and the lord was with joseph And he was a religious man. He read his bible twice a day He paid his tithes He gave money to the salvation army when he went to walmart and people around him saw that he wasn't cursing He wasn't swearing and he wasn't cheating on his wife Is that what i said I want you to see what happened when god was with joseph And the lord was with joseph and he was a successful man and he was in the house of his master The egyptian so doe joseph had god with him joseph still has some issues joseph was a slave But i want you to see this he was slave but was successful His master saw that the lord was with him and that the lord made all things he did prosper in his hand God's presence with him was so powerful that a guy his master was not a christian They didn't have a christian churches on the streets of egypt. They didn't have christian facebook programs They didn't have christian programming.  He still was tempted But he was not ignored He was different I want you to see judges what he says in judges about the lord being with us because remember what christmas is immanuel Immanuel What does it mean for joseph? it meant that god didn't protect him from the trials But in everything he rose above it because super was added to his natural and therefore his life was supernatural In judges, I want you to see that gideon said to him the hymn is an angel He says to him oh my lord If the lord is with us see the angel comes to gideon and says gideon god is with you and gideon wasn't a fool He knew what that meant He knew it didn't just mean that gideon is worshiping one god instead of many It he knew that this this this doesn't just mean that gideon is a morally good guy He knew if god is with you there has to be something there has to be evidence And the angel comes and says the lord is with you a mighty man of valor and gideon says hold off hold off Im not buying this if the lord is with us Why has all this happened to us and where are all his miracles? Meaning if I am with god I'll have a great relationship with him But if god is with me there will be power flowing through my life and gideon says You can't be telling me that god is with me if this stuff is not happening The only thing gideon missed is that the angel didn't tell that the lord is with them He only said the lord was with him And gideon is saying if the lord is with us the angel didn't say the lord was with them The lord says i am only with you gideon and because of that from now on gideon's life started to change Because gideon started to little go radical god started to use him with 300 guys It's almost like that movie 300 like without weapons without missiles without bombs without tanks and they conquered a vast army Which is 300 man with trumpets and with torches. Why because if the lord is with you listen, there will be evidence immanuel Immanuel Which means christmas is god not just saying come be with me pray read and fast and go to church give 10% Christmas is god saying i'll fill your heart And i want to be with you that there will be evidence that pharaohs will see that the portifars will see that The listen there will be changes in your life But let's let's jump into the new testament jesus Has a nicodemons who is a religious man Comes to him at night and if we can read from john chapter 3 This man the nicodemons a religious man came to jesus by the night He didn't want to get caught because it would not be good for his popularity poll if he would connect himself with jesus and he said to him rabbi We know you are a teacher from god for no man can do these signs That you do unless god is with him he's saying We are we are with god jesus. We're with god We sacrifice We give our ties we fast twice a week. We pray we don't sin.    So Immanuel What does it mean? miracles Changes Practically it does not mean your life will be easy. It just means god adds his super to your natural god comes and adds his turbo to your Come on. Give me give me a rhyme word lord. I'm just kidding God adds stuff to our life. I mean let's let's look at christmas the christmas story itself For those of us who we embrace christmas. We love this this season, but have you ever thought from a skeptical Human point of view. Have you looked at christmas from that point of view? A girl that's probably 14 or 15 years of age gets a visit from It was a gabriel Archangel, okay And he comes to her she gets pregnant after that and I heard stories of people getting pregnant when men visited to them And imagine she's going to Her fiance and says hey joseph. I just gotta tell you a story. I'm pregnant This is like really? Yes, I'm pregnant. Who's the father you won't believe it god Just like yeah heard that before What's his name? Well gabriel visited me which gabriel the one we went to school with No, no like from heaven. Yeah, they're all from heaven I mean imagine how bizarre you're pregnant, but there was no intimacy there and joseph already Breaks the engagement tears the the flyers for the wedding and he's gone Joseph is gone and he's sleeping in the night and god's angel comes to him and this wasn't just like a pizza dream This was so real that joseph wakes up and takes mary as his wife knowing He's not the father and believing she's carrying god Have you ever thought about that? A little girl carrying god That's crazy Insane that's what christmas is insane It's everything about christmas is not normal everything about christmas is not just good It's crazy It's supernatural Angels showing up there and there We see wisemen the scientists these guys should not be worshiping god They're supposed to be atheists and they're the ones that not just worshiping god. They're worshiping a baby That's insane crazy And they're bringing gifts and god comes and warns them during the night everything about christmas story is not natural It's god adding super to the natural and god is saying this is what christmas is god with us church Many times we've reduced christianity to something to the set of morals We reduce christianity to just simply come feel good. There is heaven Not sure whether there is but anything that's supernatural. We push it away. I want to tell you something everything about christian faith is not natural And therefore I declare over our life today This is god's gift for us during christmas saying i don't want to just feel you I want to change your life through my power and through my spirit If you're tormented by demons, I want to drive those demons out If there is a sickness that nobody else can help and medicine has tried their best and you've tried the exercise And you've tried the diet and you've tried the vitamins and and you see that you can't be to see sometimes There is evil stronger than our human abilities to overcome and that's where god comes with his power and says listen Let's beat that cancer together. Let's beat the arthritis together Let's beat the tuberculosis together if everybody dies at the age of 45 in your family goddess Let's beat the premature death together god with us That's why there is a lady that sits in this room who was colorblind all of her life and one day god She was always with god But there was a day when god stepped in into the situation and her eyes were open and she started to see colors There's another young lady who actually got baptized today who had cysts But god stepped in during one service and those cysts were vanished and they were cleared out God with us There's a young lady that's sitting among us who was abused and who was molested as a child and because of that Lesbianism came over her and she she she lived with it and and praised it and celebrated but deep inside She knew that's not who I am and one day god came in Instead of free and today she's discovering her femininity and today she's reaching out for the heights Immanuel Immanuel church Expect miracles in your life Don't take the final word of a prognosis on your health because immanuel is with us Don't take the final word just because you're going through bankruptcy or just because nobody in your family rose above Poverty don't take that that's not going to be your portion. Why because you're not just having salvation You having an immanuel means god says i am going to be with you you walk through the flood I will be with you.  What is that?  Oh my god Judith Judith has been coming to church for some time and A lot of times and this is not to embarrass her but she came to church on the bike During winter during snow some people saw her riding a bike to church And then this christmas You know god I told Judith earlier this year that You will get a car god will bless you and a member of our church last sunday donated the vehicle they want to stay anonymous and That's exactly what happened and christmas Judith is that god gave us this promise And right now you're feeling great, but I hope you're not going to leave this car On the parking lot Are you serious?  It's a vehicle That can cause you can stand it. It's a vehicle that can take you from where you are to where you want to be But you know what many of us do we do what I just did I preached I opened it to you Man, this is great. God is with me awesome Put it back and you're going back home to live your life on the bike You get what you're saying This was up Yeah, you can't and so and we're going back to simple. They say well That's the way it is. I can't overcome this. Why I've tried God didn't give you a promise so you can cover it in a box posted on an instagram and simply say well, what a great god I got he gave me a gift God gave you a promise so you can open it And so you can use it Judith is not going to bring harm to the lady or to the man that gave her the car She actually will bring it harm if she will say I won't drive it because I'm not good enough See some of us in here say god's power cannot flow through me. You don't know what I've done God does he's god God just says you don't know who I am. I love you so much and I'm giving this and the best thing you can do for me Is to receive it and begin to live it Next Sunday, I'm going to start a series of how to take the god's promise And turn it into practical life That's for next Sunday When god gives us a gift Then it's time to use that gift for his glory Amen God bless you. God bless you. Thank you so much We're all longing for god's presence But we're all looking for god's power And christmas is god coming and saying Emmanuel Which means we can overcome Which means there's nothing comes our way That it cannot be overcome by god with us Can somebody say man church? Hi there If you're like me and you like to click on things go ahead and click right here And subscribe to our youtube channel in this way We'll be able to send the content to you directly And each week you'll stay updated with the things that we post. Thank you so much for watching and have a wonderful day