My Garden, Year Two

This is the second year my college mentor has given me space in her vegetable garden for a garden of my own. This year, I was much more savvy in my planning, so I'm expecting (and praying!) to have a better harvest than last year. We're off to a good start! I thought I'd post some pictures of my garden here to get you oriented to what I've planted. It's always fun to have pictures from the beginning of a garden and I'll be sure to post more when the garden is in full production in August/September. Here are two views of my garden:

 

The picture above shows all the plants expect my tomatoes and one cucumber. In this main part of the garden, I planted potatoes (front left corner), beans, tomatoes, a cucumber, carrots (which I had to replant once), peas, basil, rosemary, chives and green onions. I also planted marigolds, hollyhocks, cosmos and zinnias because I love having fresh flowers. I have a couple volunteer plants from last year that sprung up, including dill, calendula (a flower), snapdragons, a nasturtium, and parsley. As I was weeding today, I pulled up tons of baby hollyhocks and snapdragons that had re-seeded themselves. :) Here's a couple close-ups from the garden:

 

Dottie, my college mentor, and I also decided to try experimenting with straw bale gardening this year. Straw bale gardening was invented as a way to garden successfully even with poor soil. The Mohrlangs have an empty lot next to their house that will be the future home of a Whitworth professor when he gets around to building a house on the lot. In the meantime, he let us use his property for our straw bales. I decided to plant tomatoes, cucumbers, zucchini and a pepper plant in my straw bales. Here's hoping they thrive! The first picture below is our whole straw bale garden. Dottie's bales have dirt on top of the whole bale while mine just have dirt directly around the plant:

 

A Romanian Rainbow pepper plant:

 

This is a view down the row of bales. You can see a Siletz tomato in the foreground, then a Black Krim tomato, a couple zucchini plants, and English cucumbers at the very end. I also planted two Sun Gold tomato plants given to me by a co-worker, and a lemon cucumber plant.



I love having a garden. I like thinking about God giving Adam the job of stewarding the earth in the Garden of Eden. Gardening is labor intensive (if my sore back after weeding is any indication), but it's also freeing to dig my hands into the dirt after a week of sitting at a desk in front of a computer. It's good to use my hands instead of my head and my whole body instead of just my fingers. Pray with me that my garden grows and that I can be generous with the fruit it bears!

Have you planted a garden this summer? What did you plant?

American Grown: A Book Review

I've been researching popular Christian blogs at work and noticed that many Christian bloggers write book reviews on their blogs. I thought that'd be a fun thing to do on this blog occasionally. I know many of you love to read and are always looking for good book recommendations. I'd love for you to use the comments section here to recommend your own books or chime in on my review if you've read the book.

This will also help me be accountable to reading more often and blogging more frequently. A win-win situation, right? :o)

I appreciated American Grown right off the bat for two reasons. 1) It celebrates the history of American gardens from the extensive gardens at Thomas Jefferson's estate, Monticello, to the Victory Gardens of WWII. 2) The book embraces subjects that Republicans, Democrats, and Independents alike can support because the book is fundamentally about the joys of gardening, eating fresh, local food and the benefits of an active lifestyle.

The book is divided into four main sections: spring, summer, fall and winter. The primary narrative centers on the evolution of Michelle Obama's White House Garden over the past several years. My favorite part of this book was the way the garden involved people and celebrated tradition and diversity. Elementary school kids planted. White House staff tended the garden. Visiting dignataries received honey from the White House beehives and pickled vegetables from the garden. Native Americans taught the "three sisters planting" (planting corn, beans, and winter squash in the same bed). The plants that grow in the garden celebrate culinary traditions from around the country and world. Etc.

Gardens have a great knack for building healthy communities. Besides using the White House garden as an example of this, Michelle highlights community and school gardens that are bringing new life to derelict land, introducing kids to homegrown food, and drawing communities together.  

I also love that a portion of food from the White House garden goes to a local D.C. nonprofit called Miriam's Kitchen that serves the homeless. Michelle writes "[Miriam's Kitchen's] philosophy is that if someone comes and will only get one meal, it should be the very best meal they can have" (132). I love the principle behind that...when someone is in need, we give them the very best we have.

There's a lot more to like about this book, but I'll leave it you to read and discover. It's not an explicitly Christian book, but there is much to enjoy from a Christian perspective, both in affirming the goodness of creation and its higher purpose in helping people enjoy God's good gifts. And now, in the spirit of gardening, here are some pictures from my garden! I was going to show you my first Silvery Fir Tree tomato, but I ate it before I could take the picture. Perhaps that's how it should be. :o)

My first heirloom Bennings Green Tint Scallop summer squash. I grew it from a seed I got from my friend Megan. Here's the description from the Baker Creek Heirloom Seed website: "Colorful light green scalloped shaped fruit, tender and good quality; excellent yields, easy to grow. We have grown this variety for many years; an old favorite."

A zinnia I grew from birthday seeds sent to me by my friend Lydia.

A street view of my garden at Dottie's house with the garden sign I bought at the Gresham Farmer's Market two summers ago. The squash is a Long Cheese Squash, supposed to be extra good for pies!

I will post more garden pictures later. I'm proud of my garden this year and thank God that it's actually produced!

Question to ponder from American Grown by Michelle Obama: Have you experienced community around a garden? What did it look like?