This year, as usual we began our journey at the Atlantic County Utility Authority (ACUA).  In each year, in their greenhouse we have found a home for our seedlings to grow. Through their generosity we have acquired rich soil to add to our garden boxes. We are thankful for these community partners and their willingness to help us continue this work.

The glory of gardening: hands in the dirt, head in the sun, heart with nature. To nurture a garden is to feed not just the body, but the soul.

— Alfred Austin

Everything that slows us down and forces patience, everything that sets us back into the slow circles of nature, is a help. Gardening is an instrument of grace.

— May Sarton

Preparing our beds proved to be a lot of hard work, but as we have learned...  many hands make work much more fun and a lot easier...

The beds are ready and we've left enough room in the garden so our angels would have room to dance. 

Our Intergenerational Community Growing with Our Garden

"Behold my friends, the spring has come; the earth has gladly received the embraces of the sun, and we shall soon see the results of their love."

"I think this is what hooks one on gardening:  it is the closest one can come to being present at creation."

"You have to get up and plant the seed and see if it grows, but you can't just wait around, you have to water and take care of it!"

 "A garden requires patient labor and attention.  Plants do not grow merely to satisfy ambitions or to fulfill good intentions..."

 "They thrive because someone expended effort on them"

"The love of gardening is a seed once sown that never dies"

A New Year Another Garden

The process starts the same way each year.  What should we plant? And then we select and plant our seeds.  ACUA greenhouse provides a generous location for our seeds to begin to grow. 

Now is the time for us to join together and plant the seeds that will transform the places in which we live. --Greg Peterson

Next step, clean up...  the land...

Then the boxes...

"The soil is the great connector of lives, the source and destination of all. It is the healer and restorer and resurrector, by which disease passes into health, age into youth, death into life. Without proper care for it we can have no community, because without proper care for it we can have no life." ~Wendell Berry

 

...and just like that--with the help of neighbors parishioners, young and young at heart the land is cleared and the beds are ready for our plants.  

Abundance...

There is only one word for our garden this year...

ABUNDANCE

A bit of herbs...   Basil

Strawberries continue to produce...  in abundance!

Okra produces such a beautiful flower!!

And this year, we have WATERMELON!

The youth fretted over this flower garden an it has bloomed.

ABUNDANTLY!!