Progress in the Garden

Sugar Snap Peas

Our progress this year has seemed very slow.  I think the fact my teaching job, our school, and the Department of Education of NYC has been in flux has added to the situation.  Then there was the "death" of my car.  I have spent an extra 2 hours traveling each day in May and June.  That plus the need to borrow my wife or daughter's car to even get to the plots has been difficult.  Of course, there have been the regular garden varmints as well.

At the congregational garden, we did have a harvest of Sugar Snap Peas.  These were distributed on a Saturday morning.  We also had some greens, but not enough to distribute, so a large mixed salad of mixed greens with radishes was prepared  for the Oneg/fellowship time.  Those areas were replanted with beans (in place of the peas) and a variety of root vegetables (beets, carrots, turnips, parsnips and root parsley in place of the greens).  The tomatoes are a little slow, but the tomatillos are blooming.

Beets and Perpetual Spinach

The varmints have been at it.  There was a stinky skunk family.   While they were smelly, they did not eat vegetables.  They have been dealt with.

Gnawed on Cabbage

Pod Peas in the Secret Garden

Then there is the woodchuck family.  They have dug under a garden gate and help themselves to various greens and root crops.  They seem to like cabbage a lot.  They have made a burrow by the building  and seem quite settled in.  A couple a weeks ago when we were at Laurie's cousin's Bar Mitzvah, it was reported that the children were chasing the critters away from the beans they have planted.  (Note those seeds were donated by my brother and some plants have survived.)  I think I have stopped the woodchucks tunneling into the garden and we will be investing in substances that they do not like, but does not hurt them.

Squash at the Secret Garden

Besides my own, there are two other gardens.  I have not been to the potato garden for some time, but the owner reported that the peas are up and growing.  The other garden we might refer to as the Secret Garden.  It is surrounded by trees, bushes and vines, but was used in the past as a garden.  Every time I have gone, it has been extremely moist.  So the tomatoes in the Secret Garden are growing very slowly.  Some of the squash that I planted came up, but most of it may have rotten from the extreme moisture in the ground.  The wetness encourages weed growth.  However, the broccoli is doing very well and promises to have a good harvest.

Broccoli at the Secret Garden

Things are rather slow now, but we look for a harvest in good time.  The same is true in the spiritual life.  
Galatians 6:9 says,  Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up."  With the garden and with our life in Messiah, we must sow, weed and care for it, so that we reap a good harvest in good time.