A brief update -

I went by the garden and harvested. It was a good harvest -

Doesn’t that look good? If you are confused, let me assure you, yes, it does look good.

I didn’t water because it rained a ton over the last week, praise God! We love rain!

What is yet to be -

The Denning / McAlisters will be the first group to work the garden this spring when they come out this Saturday. I may have already mentioned it, but it bears repeating – they are awesome (a core value of the garden). They come out and serve and bond and bless. Jealous? You needn’t be. You can come out and be awesome, too. Check out the spring schedule, pick a day, let me know, come and let the awesome flow.

Now is a time to look back on last year’s highs and lows, and to look forward to this year’s plans, right?

No? I’m too late for that? Thank goodness, I hate those gushy end of year wrap-ups. We just did that, do we have to re-live it already? How nostalgic are you?!

Maybe I go too far. It’s good to look back at where you’ve been. This year, the garden went from an idea to a groundbreaking to actually producing vegetables for the homeless of Austin. Right on!

What’s up for this year? Hopefully more of the same. Community building, food producing, good-work doing garden love. Who can’t get behind that?

Here are some pictures of the garden and it’s bounty from this past month -

What has been -

Much has been! Since our last update the Denning/McAlister small group members, those return champions of garden awesomeness, were back out the week before Thanksgiving. Then Thanksgiving weekend Seth Henry, that’s right, “Detroit” Henry himself, came out and tended. It was an all-star two weeks for the garden and it shows. The garden is in great shape and we are starting our harvest.

This week Eric and Cheryl Kaufman’s small group had a great turn out in the garden. Eric, like many of you I’m sure, ran a large scale garden in Switzerland for several years, so he was immediately appointed garden supervisor for the day.

The group harvested radishes and snap peas. They added granular fertilizer, compost and mulch to all the beds as well as the usual – weeding, watering, liquid fertilizer application. They planted more radishes where a line of previously planted carrots mysteriously disappeared (part of the Christ Church Carrot Relocation Program? We may never know.) The seed packet said the radishes will be ready to harvest in 24 days! That is ridiculous.

What is yet to be -

I think the Denning/McAlister group will be back out soon. Special thanks to them for their consistent garden love. Also, Sharon Perry will be leading a group of honor society students for a work day on the 15th. I think they will be planting strawberries and am excited to see how that works out.

While I was away in Seattle (where it was sunny and not raining. What do I have to do to see some rain?) the Coelho small group came out to the garden. They had had a good turn out and got lots of work done. Below is Peter’s report on the garden, with my commentary where necessary -

Garden was fun! duh I don’t think we killed anything that’s surprising….We fertilized, weeded a bit, and squared off the garden extension.Great! We were only able to put down compost to a depth of about 3 or 4 inches though. Our shoveling crew may have not gotten all they could have out of the compost pile, but they seemed to think that was about what they could get. Sounds dubious. We’re going to need the names of this “shoveling crew” I totally meant to take photos but forgot! No worries, we can totally go back in time and record this monumental day in our garden’s history. Oh no, we can’t. We all lunched at the Whip In afterward and enjoyed good food and live music. Ok, now we are getting back on track. Having a teacher on staff with City School (Blair Wellen) was helpful as it meant we could wash up and use the school’s bathrooms, great! We were all wondering how you managed to use the restroom this was especially important after some fertilizer spillage. What!

So, thanks Coelho small group and thanks Peter for the wrap up! Of course all my comments are in jest. Except for me wondering about the spilled fertilizer. And I will still need those shoveling crew names.

What has been -

The Denning / McAlister gang was out again. Their last time out, they tore through the work I had planned and appeared to be a bit disappointed that I didn’t have more to do. So this time, I made sure the garden didn’t disappoint.

Of course they watered, fertilized and weeded (the big three!). They also built more jute trellising. I seem to have developed a knack for identifying the “type A” person in each group who will string up a trellis that is true enough to be used as a proof for mathematical theorems. This time, it was Heidi, and I think the snap-pea vines will appreciate her attention to detail as they adorn the twine. Or at least I will, you can never tell if snap-peas appreciate anything.

Miles on left, Heidi on right. Looking geometric, looking good.

The DA’s also began work on CCG II, More Garden. That’s right, the garden is expanding.

Because I am delusional, I thought they would be able to remove all vegetation, till, add compost and re-till about 200 square feet in an hour and a half. They didn’t, but not due to lack of effort. What they did accomplish was removing most of the bermuda / weeds, covering with cardboard and adding compost on top of about 150 square feet.

Compost delivery. They were able to teach their children what barnyard manure is. Of course, the kids loved it. Nice “Whip In” shirt, Tony! Way to represent the un-official CCG watering hole!

What we’ll do is let that sit for the next 3-4 months. Hopefully, we will continue to do the same and cover the rest of the area west of the garden until we have an area prepared that will double the size of the garden. Then, when we get a build day planned, all we will have to do is cut in the beds / paths and plant. Wahoo!

CCG II; phase one of many

What is yet to be -

No garden work day this week. Parish Retreat!