New Sign For Our Veggie Garden

The church recently purchased and installed beautiful signs for our playground, our Memory Garden and for our veggie garden, which is named Menno Gardens.  Take a look.......

See What's Blooming in Menno Gardens

Here are some photos of the veggies that are growing in Menno Gardens.  These veggies, once harvested, will be shared with the Fairfield Area Food Pantry.  Thanks to everyone that is helping to keep Menno Gardens alive!

Our youngsters have taken quite an interest in our garden. Each Sunday they  check what is happening in the garden and want to plant more seeds.  Last week they seeded sunflowers and red beets. Since they are so interested, we created a new mound of sandy soil for them to plant melons.  Next week they can smooth over the remaining dirt pile and plant more string beans.   Dot, our food pantry director says we can't have too many string beans.

We had a picnic after church Memorial Day Sunday so they cut and cleaned lettuce for a salad.  Soon the kale and chard will be ready to start harvesting, as well.  Tomatoes, beans, peppers are all thriving.  The cauliflower is struggling a bit thanks to a rabbit that seems to like its leaves.  We may have to invest in some low fences if they are to survive!

Getting there

Bit by bit our garden is getting there.  Our first attempts at going green (using recycled containers to plant in) were adequate, but messy looking.  After 2 years of experimenting, we have a better idea of what we want in our raised beds.  Things are starting to look a bit better.  We redid some of the beds  making things look a bit more finished and "professional."  Gwen and Steve Hendrickson have been great additions to our gardening team.  Peyton Murray is our compost man.  Thank goodness for what he's done so far as having that to add to the soil has been great. 

By now we have lettuce, onion, broccoli, cauliflower, Brussell sprouts, beets and chard planted.  Now we need rain!  It is gratifying to know that in this small way we are God's hands and feet and that some of our veggies will bring some tasty meals to many tables.

Srping's Finally here!

There is nothing quite so beautiful as spring in Adams County.  Every year I think it can't get any better and it always does.  Walking to the church this afternoon I was moved almost to tears by the beauty of our little community.  Trees pushing blossoms, daffodils and tulips dancing in the breeze, grass greening, and oh yes, the weeds are growing.

After helping prepare for tomorrow's Food Pantry I worked on one of our raised beds and planted some mystery seeds.  Well, not all were mysterious as I identified the dill, but the others could have been kale, chard or beets.  All yummy.  Hopefully in a few days we'll have a better idea.  Whatever comes up will be fine as our pantry clients like greens!

Darv Gebhart is our seed and plant man.  Sunday he brought us several flats of gorgeous continual cutting lettuce.  All those plants are planted and growing.  Tomorrow our food pantry volunteers will get to enjoy our first cutting of freshly harvested garden lettuce.  Yum!

Get ready, get set, oops it's still winter!

Garden Report for 2014

Like all things in life, insight into better gardening comes with experience and even failure. Raised boxes are different from planting directly in the ground. Some things just don't do well in smaller pots, so from now on we are only going to use the larger raised beds. We also tried doing without fertilizer but that limited crop yield. This year we'll feed the soil as well as eliminate all the individual pots. Another challenge will be better composting. 

Last year we experimented with lettuce, onions, beets, chard, kale, broccoli, tomatoes, carrots, sweet potatoes, bush and pole beans, and brussel sprouts. Tomatoes in individual containers did not work! This year our intention is to plant lettuce, onions, greens, peas, beets, broccoli, green beans, tomatoes, and a few herbs like basil and parsley. If we have space we will try brussel sprouts again. 

Darv and I seem to be the self-designated gardeners. We both delight in working with God in the garden. While we are perfectly happy to do the garden ourselves, we would also welcome participation from others, even non FMC'ers. And, since the ripening process frequently doesn't coincide with food pantry, we anticipate having more vegetables this year for congregational use.

Even though the signs and feel of winter is everywhere, we are feeling the stir of spring fever.  Darv Gebhart, our seeds and plants man, has a bad case of early garden fever and is chomping at the bit to get started.  I suspect if I checked his basement and plant lights I'd see little green shoots starting to show their little faces.  It  won't be long now until we plant early peas. lettuce, and onions.  We are truly grateful for both the joy and opportunity that awaits us as we work together with our Heavenly Father in sharing the abundance He has so plentifully given us!