Garden Update October 29, 2011

It seems that many of my favorite gardening blogs, like Annie's Kitchen Garden, BLD in MT, Daphne's Dandelions, Georgia Home Garden, and The Corner Yard have all wound down for the winter. Some of these people are even supposed to get *snow* this weekend. God bless 'em.

I haven't been blogging about the garden as much since fall has come, because, well, school is in session. But the garden is the best it has been for me. The spring/summer gardens were complete no-shows. I didn't get enough food to actually eat. Sigh.

But the fall garden is going fine, by my standards. We are getting enough green beans to eat from the garden about 2 time per week. By that I mean I get a "mess" of green beans. Do you know what a "mess" is? My grandmother called it a "mess of beans" if she could feed her family on the pickings. So I am getting 2 "messes" per week right now. Great stuff, those home grown green beans. Yum.

And this week I just started getting in some English peas. Now, to my mind, English peas from the garden are just like heaven. I almost ate all of them right there in the garden--raw. But my middle daughter said, "Now, mom, save some for us for suppertime." So I did. I stopped eating them out of the pod and waited to add the rest to my "mess of green beans." There were enough English peas for us to have about 4 or 5 each.

Oh my. I love them raw. They taste a little like nature candy to me. Crunchy. Slightly sweet. Oh so good. Canned peas do not even taste like the same species as those wonders from the garden.

Not much to show you, because I ate most of them. 

I have 4 broccoli plants that are doing fair to middling. One of them looks like it will really produce a beautiful broccoli plant. The others--I am going to have to wait and see. But I have tasted the leaves and they are awesome, so I hope to get at least one fully grown plant. 

This week, I decided to go ahead and plant some more seeds for the fall/winter garden. I planted 2 types of carrots--Scarlet Nantes and Denver Half Longs. Then I planted some spinach (I don't know what kind), and watermelon radishes. 

I'll let you know if they grow for me. 

My flowers have been over the top. I have even had strangers stop and tell me how much they like my zinnias. The zinnias got almost as tall as I am and butterflies are covering them daily now. And I have harvested so many seeds that I am going to have to start giving them to strangers. 

Weather is cooler, but we were all still in shorts yesterday. It's in the 40's this morning, but I am sure we will warm up to the 70's during the day. This is our cold front in Mobile, Alabama. 

Stay warm if you are in the path of that snow. Blessings to you all. 

Review of Bound for Glory by Timothy Botts

This book has 52 African American spirituals, with the words to the songs, a reflective passage about the song, and a beautiful calligraphic letterforms painting. I personally liked the reflective passages that were written by the artist, because he would usually explain the process behind his art.

Some of the old spirituals were unknown to me, but many were familiar to me and would probably be familiar to you: Rock-a-My Soul in the Bosom of Abraham, We are Climbing Jacob's Ladder, Joshua Fought the Battle of Jericho, Them Bones, Them Bones, Them Dry Bones, Go Tell it on the Mountain, He's Got the Whole World In His Hands, and This Little Light of Mine are among the more familiar songs. I found myself singing to my children while reading this book.

After reading it the first time, I went back and re-read the calligraphic letterform paintings. I love them. They are beautiful. They are art. The pictures are so stunning, in fact, that I wanted you to see an example of them.
 

 


After reading this book, I have decided to purchase 2 copies for friends of mine. One person was a singer in a college choir. They sang many of these songs in performances. The other has suffered a devastating loss and I think this book will comfort her.

Disclaimer: I received a free copy of this book from Tyndale House Publishers in exchange for an honest review.

Review of Going Deep by Gordon MacDonald

I really enjoyed this book. My only hesitation in recommending it wholeheartedly is that it is fiction. This did not really happen. Too bad.

In this fictional account of a New England church, Pastor Gordon MacDonald and his wife go to a Red Sox game with their neighbors and good friends, the unchurched and unsaved Sorianos. Mr. Soriano asks Pastor MacDonald what the church's elevator story is. The pastor doesn't know the term. It is a story that a person tells to the other person in an elevator that succinctly sums up the mission. If the story is compelling enough, it causes the other person in the elevator to invest to a tune of $20 million.

This question starts the pastor on a search that leads him to pray for a "great idea" that will make the church more like the one he described in his elevator story. A church member hands him a quote from Richard Foster. "The desperate need today is not for a greater number of intelligent people or gifted people, but for deep people." (page 23).

This quote begins to focus the pastor's quest, so he and his wife and some others work to define "deep people." They come up with things like: worshipful reverence for Jesus. Caring about others. Caring about the church. Calm and certain in the face of difficult circumstances. Unashamed to speak about God's grace and favor in life. Vigorous daily devotions. Faith and optimism in God's power. Influence others because people look to them for "inspiration, guidance, and assurance." (all of this from page 123).

After agreeing on the definition of deep people, the church determines to cultivate them in their church. A small group of people, both men and women are chosen for a year long discipleship in order to cultivate a "deepening" experience with Christ in their lives.

The remainder of the book is dedicated to this process. Enough information and supplementary books are given that it would be entirely possible, if you desired, to re-create this for yourself, using the books provided and praying your way through it.

Highly recommended.

I received a free copy of this book from Thomas Nelson in exchange for an honest review.

I Was Nominated for a Blogging Award!

Kris from Georgia Home Garden, an absolutely great blog about his garden, kindly nominated me for the Liebster Blog.

The idea with this Blog Award is that it is presented to people who have less than 200 followers. They in turn "pay it forward" by nominating 3 to 5 people for the award, as well.

Here is the description from Kris's site:

The Liebster Blog Award is designed to introduce others to enjoyable blogs that have less than 200 followers. When you accept the award, you choose 3-5 other blogs that you feel are deserving of more subscribers and pass the award on to them.

Here are the rules:
1. Thank the giver and link back to the blogger who gave it to you.
2. Reveal your top picks and let them know by leaving a comment on their blog.
3. Copy and paste the award on your blog.
4. Have faith that your followers will spread the love to other bloggers.
5. And most of all - have fun! 


The first person I want to present the award to is my dear friend, with a great and funny homeschool blog, Layla, at Flat (Tire)d Homeschool. I love her blog. She makes me laugh. Her blog is so great and worth reading. I look forward to all her new posts. 


The next person I would like to present an award to is Doris of The Art Annex. She is an art teacher in Huntington, New York. I get more great ideas from her site than from any other. I love to read about her arts and crafts with children ranging in ages from preschool (about 4) to high school.


The third person I would like t present an award to is "Ribbit" from The Corner Yard. She writes a garden blog in the summer, and then at other seasons of the year she talks about what is going on at the school at which she works. I enjoy reading about her garden and her children. 

Garden Update

I haven't posted a garden update in a couple weeks. That is not because my garden is winding down. It is because my life, therefore my blog, is currently filled with homeschool and an upcoming birthday party. We are harvesting enough green beans to feed our family of 5 about 2 or 3 times a week. Fresh green beans. From the garden. Yay! I sure am glad I didn't throw in the towel when I was weary in July.

Look at that beautiful tangle of green bean vines. I am definitely
going to have to plant running beans next year. No bush beans for me.

This isn't all of them, but I thought it was a cool picture. 

The eggplants still look beautiful and I have 3 growing eggplants on 2 plants. I can't wait to eat some eggplant ravioli. 

It is still very dry and I am having to water about 2 times a week in October. It just seems wrong to have to water in October. But my garden is looking better than it has the entire year, so I will water.

My herbs are going great guns. I have thyme and lemon balm trying to take over the place. I moved the oregano to that bed in the front yard and it is much happier there. It's probably doubled in size since I did that.

I really want a lovage plant, but 2 attempts at starting from seed have met with complete and dismal failure. I may have to resort to ordering from an online company that has the plants already growing, but I may wait until spring to put in the order. I also want a lime thyme because it sounds so funny when you say it out loud. I do have a lime basil that is yummy. I eat the leaves right there in the garden. I am also planning to buy a pineapple sage for the front yard, because I love the thought that sage was always planted because it symbolized wisdom. I could sure use some wisdom. Maybe I'll plant sage so I can cultivate wisdom. (ok. Bad joke. But I am laughing here at home. Somebody has to laugh at my jokes.)  I am also interested in some scented geraniums, but have had a little difficulty in locating any. I may have to order them online too.