Lil's Garden

We've shared our harvest with the Floresville Food Bank, the San Antonio Mennonite Church Market, and some of our Floresville neighbors and friends, and there is still an abundance. So I have been learning how to preserve vegetables. True to the form of The Two Little Gardeners, we've been cooking... and canning. I have frozen some corn — on the cob and off —   and breaded and froze some okra for frying later. I canned some tomato sauce. We got a very cool dehydrator last summer for the peaches, and I have been putting it to good use. I dried a whole bunch of little tomatoes to use in salads and soups and sauces. Then I read that you could dehydrate tomatoes and grind them into a powder.  The powder can later be reconstituted into tomato paste, sauce, soup, or juice. So I did that. And there are still tomatoes to share. Anybody want some?

While we were unpacking boxes I rediscovered another favorite children's book. I got the book from my Aunt Vera. She gave me a bunch of books that had made their way through her children and grandchildren. This one belonged to her grandson, Jeff Kildow. My children and grandchildren have enjoyed it. It's missing half of the back cover. But I think I liked it the best. Play With Me was written and illustrated by Marie Hall Ets. Marie (1893-1984) was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. After one year of college, she moved to New York to study art, where she earned a certificate of interior design. She worked for a while in San Francisco, where she married her husband, Milton Rodig, in November 1917. He enlisted in the army the next year, 1918, but died of pneumonia in Arkansas.  I wonder if it was actually the Spanish influenza that was rampant at that time. After his death she moved to Chicago where she was a social worker, living in a settlement house and serving immigrants a

As I listened to the lectionary reading from Matthew 9 this morning at Dayspring Baptist Church in Waco, Texas, via Facebook Live, I had to say "amen" to verse 37. Robert and I had just returned from the garden with the daily harvest — some okra, green beans, squash, and two huge baskets of tomatoes. Although we had hoped to share this "big garden" experience this summer with family, friends, and students, social distancing has changed the plans a bit. We have been able to share the produce with friends, neighbors, Floresville Food Bank, and the San Antonio Mennonite Market. But the harvesting has been left to Two Little Gardeners . (Our neighbor, Sally Gaertner, gave us this Little Golden book, first published in 1951, the year before we were born.) We have enjoyed the work. It usually takes us about an hour and a half every morning or sometimes every other morning to pick the produce. It's such a thrill to find what's waiting for us. The

The harvest from the garden has been bountiful, so bountiful, in fact, that we have had to find others to share the surplus. Neighbors have dropped by to take some off our hands. They have shared with their family and friends. And there was still more. For the last few weeks we have been taking produce to the Mennonite Church of San Antonio "Market" on Saturday afternoon. The produce has been offered freely, and we have asked that any donations go to the ranchito, Semillas , an Interfaith Welcome Coalition aimed at equipping refugees with the tools of trauma-healing. Yesterday I shared some of the harvest with the Floresville Food Pantry . They partner with Daily Bread Ministries of San Antonio to provide food for needy families in the area. I am happy to be helping to feed the people of this community with the bounty of our harvest.

The garden is looking really good. It's a daily job to keep up with the harvest. I've been sharing some with neighbors and with the San Antonio Mennonite Church "Market" on Saturday afternoons. If you are local, I would love to share some of the produce with you. Here's what I harvested this morning.  This is our first sweet corn.  We have a lot of scalloped squash and yellow squash.  There is also a variety of small tomatoes. The big ones are not ready yet.  I pick a basket full of green beans almost every morning.  The zinnias and marigold are beautiful and plentiful. Yesterday we harvested the last of the potatoes. We had a few that had sprouted, so I think I will be planting them to see if I can make potatoes in the summer. The okra is just coming on, and we will soon have melons and cucumbers.