Garden

Saturday, we planted the community garden, 2008 edition. A few days ago, I was wondering where I was going to get the money to buy plants for the garden. Then we get a check from Ellsworth Kalas, president of the seminary. He sent us a check last year after hearing about our garden, and was similarly moved this year. Once I had the money in hand, I began to wish I could spend it not on plants, but on some “capital improvements” for the garden: hoses, tools, trellises, etc. Then a lady who has a small farm in southeast Fayette County said she’d like to donate a bunch of plants. She has the job I guess I would have if I weren’t preaching: running a small farm growing specialty greens and vegetables for restaurants around town. She has lots of heirloom varieties. She sent me her list of available stuff and I went into shock. I had tomato paralysis and simply could not choose. I told her to just send along whatever. So we got some great tomatoes, peppers, watermelons, and eggplants. Wow, I never knew eggplant could be so interesting.

Anyway, the day of planting was awesome. I got to the garden at 8:30 a.m., to get ready—do stuff like get some rows staked, cut up seed potatoes, set out plants in order. Anyway, Robert and Matthew Highfill, two neighbor boys who come to church were already there! I put Matthew to work cutting seed potatoes. Both boys are usually kind of high-strung, but they were so intent on the work. Once I showed Matthew what I wanted, he did it and we had a huge pile of seed potatoes. Robert went to work setting up rows for beans. It was really neat to be able to leave them there while I went and got the rest of the plant. And when I came back, the work was done. We gathered stakes and put all the plants and tools in a central location. We did a lot of work before anyone got there, and it was good to have that time with the boys.

Then people started showing up. I was a little worried because I forgot to announce it the week before. But about 20 people came, and we banged it out in about 2 ½ hours. Once again, it brought together people from all services and the neighborhood. Foti even came over. Ruth and Larry Stewart bought pizza for all of us. It was just a good morning all the way around.

I think we have more in the ground this year than we did last year. I packed it in a little more closely. I guess that’s the California in me—jam it all in and grow as much as you can. We didn’t lay things out in rows, more like in blocks—different shapes, rows running different directions. I am hoping (and here my lack of visualization skills comes in) that we will have a garden that looks and feels more like plots, more like discrete spaces than one big garden.

We have an awesome variety of stuff: tomatoes, beans, peppers, eggplant, cucumbers, squash, watermelon, okra, onions, potatoes, and something called “lenga lenga.” It’s an African green, and I can’t wait for harvest!

We had huge storms this morning, and thankfully no damage to the garden. I hope that the garden will continue to do its work: feeding people and drawing people together. The legend emerging is that Jessica and I met in the garden. That is sort of true. It was a time before we knew anything about each other. We ended up weeding and picking beans, and had a long time to talk. When Rosario asked our friend John to come help, John said, “No thanks. I have a wife.”