Cauliflower as Big as Your Head

The Alliance Community Garden has continued to produce delicious vegetables, in spite of it being January. We recently harvested cauliflower and broccoli, and were able to offer it as an altar arrangement for Sunday Services. What a joy to share! The Archibalds and the Fitzpatricks each took home samples, and report that AUMC vegetables are awesome. (That's an official term, folks.)

We've set a Garden Party for January 22, at 2:00 p.m. in the Family Life Center of AUMC. Whether you like to garden, pray, build things, create artwork, or just like to eat--we'd love to have you join us and share your ideas. This will be a time to pray, brainstorm, and celebrate what God is doing in the garden.



We've spoken with the Keller Storehouse and we're setting up plans to donate a portion of our future harvest. So, the efforts of our gardening will be a blessing throughout our community and will help feed families and children in need, right here in our area. Who's excited?!

Winter Gardening--Yes, It's Possible!

We just returned from checking on the garden, with good news to report. The cauliflower and broccoli are doing so well. We harvested our first batch of broccoli on Thanksgiving day, and it was so tender and delicious. We have yet to taste the cauliflower, but it looks good so far. The spinach was struggling in its current spot (hidden from sunshine behind the enormous broccoli and cauliflower plants), so we transplanted it closer to the Western side of the bed.

If you've seen the garden lately, we "winterized" it by adding thin pvc piping with a "planket" to cover for a freeze. So far we've only had to use it once, with excellent results. The pvc piping keeps the planket off the plants, because I'm told that if the cover freezes and sticks to the plants, the plants freeze, too. Who knew?

New seedlings for carrots and lettuce have come up, and we planted a few extra radishes today since they come in so quickly--22 days! We hope to have a batch available for the first garden party meeting, which is tentatively set for 2:00 on January 22 at AUMC. More details to come soon.

Look for a ministry moment from Britta about the garden at each of the Sunday services at Alliance UMC on January 8. See you then!

Recipes from the Garden: Radish Top Soup

Radishes are one of the easiest things to grow in a garden, and we've had tremendous success with ours. Here's a picture of our first crop--pulled a little early because I was so excited. Isn't it a cute lil' radish? I let the other batches get bigger, and we enjoyed radishes all through the fall.

But what to do with a radish, other than slice it atop a salad? I found this delicious recipe for Radish Top Soup from one of my favorite sites, Allrecipes.com. This soup, submitted by Laura Nason, is peppery and smooth, and even our non-soup eater requested seconds. We found ourselves using the tops more often than the radishes themselves! Enjoy.

Radish Top Soup
Original Recipe Yield 6 servings
Ingredients

2 tablespoons butter
1 large onion, diced
2 medium potatoes, sliced
4 cups raw radish greens
4 cups chicken broth
1/3 cup heavy cream
5 radishes, sliced

Directions
1. Melt butter in a large saucepan over medium heat. Stir in the onion, and saute until tender. Mix in the potatoes and radish greens, coating them with the butter.
Pour in chicken broth. Bring the mixture to a boil. Reduce heat, and simmer 30 minutes.
2. Allow the soup mixture to cool slightly, and transfer to a blender. Blend until smooth.
3. Return the mixture to the saucepan. Mix in the heavy cream. Cook and stir until well blended. Serve with radish slices.

Nutritional Information
Amount Per Serving Calories: 156 | Total Fat: 8.9g | Cholesterol: 28mg

Here We Grow Again...

Colleen and Russ have built a second garden bed, and our friends in Arlington have donated enough blocks for us to build two more beds! I met with Katey Rudd this week, and plan to attend a Community Garden Leadership Training in December.



Colleen and Russ will work on building the compost beds this week--most likely Thursday morning. If you're interested in helping out, holler at me and I'll give you details. You can post on this blog, or find me (Britta Coleman) on Facebook.




Please keep the garden in prayer as we work on plans to develop our vision. Look for upcoming ministry moments at Alliance United Methodist Church for meeting updates. We hope to have a church-wide/community-wide information meeting in January. With a potluck, perhaps?



If you happen to walk by the garden, pause and take a look at what's growing. Our cauliflower and broccoli continue to dominate, and Dan's sunflower is looking perky. The pepper plant is going bananas (?), and we've got new seedlings of beets and carrots making their way into this world. Amazing! I have a special helper, Toly Damon, who's been watering the plants with me and we came back to the house and shared a radish plucked fresh from the garden. A lovely experience.



Didn't Colleen and Russ do a lovely job? I hope to have the guidelines for building a bed posted soon, in case any other gardeners want to jump start and build a winter bed. For the rest of the garden, we'll plan on a build out this spring.

Stay tuned for more information...

Star-Telegram Reports on Food Banks Delivering Fresh Produce To Needy

I read this interesting article in today's Fort Worth Star-Telegram. Love the innovation of using (donated) refrigerated trucks to take fresh produce to folks who need it, right where they are. Apparently, storing fresh and frozen produce is a problem, space and money-wise for most food banks, so the mobile pantries are a smart solution.

Also, I was reminded that so many people in our area are willing to stand in line for hours for fresh food for their families. That's something to think about. Right here, in our neighborhoods, in our schools, and in our churches, people are having to make tough choices like whether to pay the utility bill or buy food.

Please continue to pray for our communities, for God's continued blessings on our garden, and that we may be a true service and a ministry for those who are in need.

Happy Plants and Happy News

This Sunday, Pastor Jim announced the joyful news of our garden in all three services at church, and several folks expressed interest in building beds and helping in various areas.

Viv has signed on to be our treasurer, and Kim will be our note taker. Colleen and Russell are pioneering a winter bed, and we have plans to build a compost bed with some donated pallets from our sister garden in Arlington. Thanks, Willie!

You can check here for the latest news, and I'll start putting information in the church newsletter and weekly bulletins. We'll also reach out to our neighborhood association and nearby communities to make this a true community garden.

Also, we have happy news from the TAFB Garden Coordinator, that Tarrant County Public Health is interested in funding a portion of our project. So, please add that to your prayers, that the funding would go through and that we'd see continued support and leadership throughout the process.


Yesterday, I walked our dogs up to church to water the garden. I was able to water the plants with our new, ginormous hoses, and the dogs enjoyed playing in the sunshine. I even saw a dragonfly enjoying our marigolds! I tried to catch a picture, but the dragonfly sort of blends. I promise, he's there.





Also, this week's happy plant award goes to Cauliflower. Doesn't it look pleased to be part of our new garden? (The plant isn't actually upside down, that's just more of my spectacular photography skills.)

The Test Bed is Born!

Today we built the first test bed for the Alliance Community Garden. We met at the church at 8:15 a.m. and had the planter built, full of soil, planted and seeded by 12:00 p.m. Way to go, teamwork!



For supplies, we used:

*52 cinder blocks from Home Depot
*3 yards of premium soil from Silver Creek
*5 bags of concrete-grade sand from Home Depot
*2 bags of mulch from Home Depot


We built the beds in a rectangular formation (4 blocks wide, 9 blocks long, 2 blocks high), lined the bottom with newspaper (free--the Colemans are proud Star-Telegram subscribers) and added a layer of sand to help thwart the weeds. We had additional bags of sand available in case we needed help for leveling the first row of blocks. Thankfully, the patch of land we picked was fairly level, so our sand use was minimal.

For plants, we brought several starters we had planted at home and transplanted them into our new garden. Though we're a bit late in the season to start, we wanted to see how far we could go with radishes, beans, okra, peppers, broccoli, cauliflower, and spinach. To help ward off unhelpful bugs, we planted a row of marigolds to surround the bed. For fun, Dan added a few sunflower seeds to the very edges: that boy has grown sunflowers since he was itty bitty.

For irrigation, we attached two super-hoses to our existing waterline, and have plans to build a water-saving rain barrel soon.



Many thanks to David and Beth Fitzpatrick (and helpful pooch Romo), Kern and Dan Coleman. We hope this test bed will be "a sign unto us" and an encouragement to those who would like to join us for spring planting. We'll have details on how you can reserve your spot in the garden soon.

And for those attending the AUMC Lord's Acre Festival on October 29th (you're all invited!), we'll have special opportunities for future gardeners.

Again, if you'd like to participate in the garden, please let me know!

Cheers and Blessings,
Britta