Garden favorites...

We have had a great year with the garden!  Probably the most surprising success was the WATERMELON crop!  Wow...did we have watermelons!  They were so fun to watch grow, from tiny Barbie-sized melons, to 20 lb beauties!  Of course, I took some pictures....



These were absolutely adorable little watermelons!












They continued to grow and one day we found we had some visitors to the garden.  Luckily, they only smashed 4 or 5 of them.  We tried to not be discouraged, and just hoped they would leave the rest alone.

                           

We ended up with a beautiful crop and as of yesterday had delivered 50 watermelons to the PCM Food Pantry.  We still have a few left to ripen.

When we initially started this project last year, the hope was this would be kind of a "team building" exercise for our congregation.  I don't know that we actually achieved that goal (there continue to be 5 - 10 gardeners), but it has been a true blessing to the Food Pantry visitors.  And that right there is a lesson, my friends.  It's not about us.  It was never about us.

Blessings to you from the garden....

As summer winds down...abundant blessings...

Although the sweet corn is finished, the rest of the garden continues to produce!  Jeff spent over 4 hours working in the garden on Saturday and Doc picked sweet corn, so and I had a large amount of produce to deliver on Monday morning!  Here are some pictures of this week's first delivery to the food pantry...

This was the end of the sweet corn for the year....

We had A LOT of beans this week!  :)

We filled two long tables with produce.

This mission has been such a blessing to all of us involved. We look forward to going out and "checking" the garden throughout the week.  There is always something new to see and we love to discuss the progress of the plants.  You'll find us spending time after services on Sundays talking about squash bugs and rabbits and plotting our defense against them. :)  We get joy out of sharing garden updates with each other, describing how much we picked or what we've seen growing.

The goal of this garden was to provide fresh produce to our local food pantry.  The outcome has been so much more for each of us...

2 Corinthians 9:6-8
Remember this:  Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously.  Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.  And God is able to bless you abundantly, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work.

Feeling abundantly blessed....  

   

Fruits....or Vegetables of our Labor!

The food pantry garden is producing a lot of vegetables!  We are happy to be able to share this with those that can use it!  We have had so much that we have been able to sell the excess at church on Sundays, with all the proceeds going to the food pantry.  It's been a win-win!  Here are some recent photos...

Today I took zuchinni, yellow squash, cucumbers, tomatoes, 3 kinds of pepers, 3 kinds of onions and 5 dozen ears of sweet corn!

Isn't that beautiful??

Ready to be taken home by food pantry visitors!

Here is a picture of the 3 volunteers that were working at the food pantry today.  They didn't know they were going to make the blog!!  This ministry is ran by a great group of volunteers!

We still have things coming on in the garden...

We have absolutely adorable little watermelons growing!

 And two types of squash that look to be some sort of hybrids!  :)  It will be interesting to see what these end up being!

I think we should take a moment and thank God for our the bounties in our own lives and for the many, many blessings we have been given.  

And now...the fun part!

The harvesting has started in earnest!  We have had radishes, cucumbers,  yellow squash, zuchinni and now we are picking green beans, beets, onions and peppers, too!

Check out some of the pictures!

View down the length of the garden

The sweet corn could use some rain, but is doing well!

The zuchinnis are growing.

     

 
The tomatoes are looking great and should be ready soon!




The winter squash and the watermelon plants are doing well, too.

The harvest is beautiful!

We pray God's blessings on all those that are touched by this beautiful mission project!

The hard work is paying off!

We have had many hands hard at work in the garden this summer!  Although we have had more weeds to deal with this year, the crew seems to have them in control!  We are starting to see some of the fruits (or, in this case, vegetables!) of our labor.  :)

The potatoes are up and we are hoping we can keep the rabbits out of them until it's time to dig them!

The peppers are getting bigger!

The tomatoes and onions are looking great!  We could use some prayers for rain though!

And the sweet corn is tassled out!

Doc replanted green beans (since the rabbits ate so many of the first ones we planted) and he's added rhubarb for next year!

It's fun to work with such a great group of people and learn so much about gardening at the same time.  It makes me smile to already hear talk of "what we should do next year".  If you want to be part of something wonderful, and get some dirt under your nails while you're at it, come join the fun!  We will also be looking for people to make deliveries to the food pantry in Monroe.  If you can help out, just let us know!  Thank you and God bless!

"When one tugs at a single thing in nature, he finds it attached to the rest of the world."

- John Muir

Progress!

With the nice weather, we have made consistent progress on the garden in the past couple of weeks....so far we have 3 kinds of potatoes, 4 kinds of onions, radishes, beets, green beans, squash, cucumbers, spinach, tomatoes and peppers planted.  And some great news...

THE SWEET CORN IS IN!!  

Thanks to Jeff and his Dad, Ernie, we will have sweet corn again this year!!

Now to back up a bit, here are some shots from last week...

Doc and Paul working the planter...notice the straight lines.  Good thing they were in charge of that, I'm not so sure I would've been quite so neat...  :)

The view from the parking lot.  Once the sweetcorn comes up, you can't really see the garden.  (I don't think they trusted us to keep it weeded so they put us behind the corn!  :)

Jake even helped for awhile...

The little onions were peeking through the dry, cracked dirt.  Amazing what time and pressure can do...

Some of the bigger onions had shot right up... (I think I planted these...notice the row isn't so straight.)

Even the potatoes were up!

Now back to this weekend...

The radishes are coming up....

  

The potatoes and onions are both looking great!

I think we can officially say summer is here and the garden is well on its way.  With the rain last night, I think we will see a lot of new growth this week.  I am really looking forward to seeing what God will do with this project this year.  We have some great people willing to pitch in and help and it's great that it directly benefits people in our own communities.  The PCM Food Pantry has been a blessing to so many people in need.  We are proud to be able to support their efforts.  Now if the weather cooperates...

Trying to beat the rain!

Well, we've finally had some dry weather, and it's warmed up enough to get outside and do some gardening.  We were discussing when we would be able to get out and get the potatoes and onions planted, then we looked at the forecast and decided we'd better do it now!  Here are a few pictures from the day...

We cut all of the potatoes before youth the other night, so we were ready to go.  We planted Red Norland, Pontiac and Kennebeck potatoes, and small and large red, yellow and white onions today.

After we taught Eric the right, left and tap technique, he and Jenny got into a good rythmn!

Doc decided to resurrect history.....

         

He gave us all lessons on using the plow...

Check out how hard he's making us work!!  What a slave driver!!

Jenny wasn't so sure about it... 

But she got it figured out fairly quickly!!  :)

What a beautiful day!  Sometimes I think we are as blessed just getting to play in the dirt, as those that receive the produce from the garden.