What progress!

Since my last post with pictures of the crew planting potatoes, I would say the entire garden is mostly planted, thanks to Jim and Jeff.  Each year we've tried a few new things and this year is no different.  In fact, instead of buying most of the plants, Jeff grew most of them from seed himself!  I'm excited to see how we do this year!

Planted in the garden this year are: 3 kinds of potatoes, onions, peas, green beans, radishes, 3 kinds of peppers, tomatoes, broccoli, cabbage, acorn squash, butternut squash, spaghetti squash, zucchini, cucumbers, watermelon and sweet corn.  Sounds like a lot!

Here are some updated views (it looks like I need to get weeding!)  Notice the difference in just a week!

I took these on May 17th...

The potatoes are up!

The onions are looking great!

I took these on May 24th. 

The potatoes are filling out!

Onions!

Jeff and Sam got everything ready for the corn to go in.  Doug E. came and got it planted!

Another great summer in the garden is well underway!!  Now the waiting begins.  Please pray for some great weather and for those that will be blessed by this ministry!  Thanks to everyone that makes this possible!  (We are always looking for new volunteers, so let us know if you'd like to help out!)

"And you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength.  The second is equally important: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'  No Other commandment is greater than these."

Mark 12:31

It's been a LOOOOONNNGGGG winter!

I found myself, like many others, wishing for warm temperatures and blue, sunny skies over the long winter.  The cold can be so discouraging, and it seemed almost unbearable to be outside to soak up any sunshine.  I would guess the cases of Seasonal Affective Disorder were pretty high this winter!  To try and hold the depressing thoughts at bay, I was looking at pictures from last year's garden.  It makes me happier just looking at them!  I can't wait for spring!
While in the kitchen at church a few Sundays ago, I found that the discussions we've been having over coffee the past few Sundays had moved past "discussions"!  Jeff has already started broccoli seeds and has little plants growing!  This made me smile, just knowing others are still as excited about this mission as I am!  If this winter had drug out any longer, we may all have little plants growing in our houses!

These pictures were from last fall when Jim had his tractor out and got the garden all tilled.

I took some pictures of the garden before we began this year….

What a beautiful patch of earth we are blessed with!

Since the threat of frost seems to be gone, we have started putting some things in the ground.  On Good Friday, we planted potatoes….a lot of potatoes!  Here are a few pictures from that afternoon.

Every row is carefully plotted, measured and aligned!

What a great work crew!

A few days later, we happened by and caught Jeff squeezing in a little extra work!

Once you get started, it's hard to stay away!  

I'm excited to see what this summer has in store for us.  We are planning to try some new things this year and it will be fun to see what works!  With the recent cuts in the federal food stamp program, the food pantry volunteers expect the requests for help to increase.  They have already had record numbers of visitors since the change. The clients and volunteers are so appreciative of the produce from the garden!  I hope we have a great year and I pray for God's blessings on the garden, those that give of their time to make the mission a success, and those that are in need.  

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