Still Growing in the Garden!

Hi everyone.   

While our plantings are cooling down with winter fast approaching, our membership has been heating up over the past couple of weeks with 6 new garden families joining!  We are still harvesting lots of fall greens and root veggies to include Kale, Swiss chard, Salad mix, Spinach, Arugula, Collards, Beets, Turnips, Carrots, and Radishes.   Our Sweet potato digging has ended with all our tasty treasures sweetening in the greenhouse.    

As our “official” nights have ended, the garden will continue for a few weeks to have “open” hours on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 4pm till dark for harvesting as well as on Saturdays 9-noon for more harvesting and finalizing tasks for winter preparation. 

Our “Final Fruits Luncheon” will be on November 18^th at 12:30pm.  Please invite your family and friends to join us as we share in food and fellowship with covered dishes and celebrate all the many garden blessings received from our God.   Our 2013 garden calendar will be available for preview with orders taken that day and delivered in time for Christmas gift giving.  We will also have an assortment of garden gifts and t-shirts on hand for purchase at the luncheon. 

Our community pizza oven is still baking and in prayerful need of some dough!  Any donation would be so appreciated and tax deductible.  Please make checks payable to Concord UMC and indicate the “Kyle Gault Eagle Project”.  Thanks! 

Thank you all for your continued support and prayers for our garden. 

It WILL be good!

-Donna Poe

Garden Coordinator

Seeing Lots of GREEN in the Garden!

Hi everyone.   

The leaves may be turning colors, but we are still seeing an abundance of green in our garden as we are now enjoying several  plantings of our fall crops.  The kale is gorgeous and ready to be used in salads, stir fries, or made into chips!  The Romaine is getting crispier with the chilly temps with two bed fulls to share.  The Baby lettuce mix, spinach, and arugula are due any day and the spring planted Swiss chard is still producing.  The beets and turnips matured earlier this fall and are amazing (I’m actually finally learning to like beets:)   Our summer plantings are still hanging around to include tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, and beans.   Still awaiting their turn for a later fall harvest are the radishes, collards, and carrots. The muscadine and scuppernaum grapes are still sweet on the vines with the basil unstoppable down below.  And the sweet icing on the cake is our Sweet potatoes… with one bed dug and four to go!  Many spindlies and several giants..but mostly perfectly shaped/sized taters for baking…yum yum!

Speaking of baking…our pizza oven is making progress and we are hoping to put it to good use at our “Final Fruits Luncheon” on November 18^th so mark your calendars to claim a slice (or two!) of the pie!   We are so thankful to Kyle Gault, for his planning and laboring of our community oven as he works towards his Eagle Badge.   The finished project will host many warm and blessed gatherings as we share its use to our community.  While Kyle’s family and friends are funding one third of the project, he is still in need of donations from our community, church family, and garden friends.  Any donation would be so appreciated and tax deductible.  Please make checks payable to Concord UMC and indicate the “Kyle Gault Eagle Project”.  Thanks! 

It is never too late to join the garden.  Still plenty of things to work, take care of, and harvest till the end of our fall season (with available harvests continuing through the winter to include Brussels sprouts!)

Also continuing through the winter as well as the academic year into 2013 are our garden interns JE and Katie Meiz with visits from Tori Hastings as well!  Thank you God for answered prayers!

Thank you all for your continued support and prayers for our garden.   Looking forward to sharing with many, more of God’s love in our garden this October.

It WILL be good!

-Donna Poe

Our FALL SEASON begins!

Hi everyone.  

As the simmer of summer cools down, we heat up again in the garden for our FALL SEASON which began September 1^st and concludes 11/20.  We are still harvesting many summer veggies with a full plate of fall favorites planned and planted to include:  Baby lettuce mix, Beans, Beets, Butternut squash, Carrots, Collards, Cucumbers, Eggplant, Grapes, Herbs (lots of basil!), Kale, Peanuts, Peppers, Romaine, Radishes, Spinach, Sweet potatoes (5 beds full!), Swiss chard, Tomatoes, Turnips, Yellow squash, and Zucchini!

We are now accepting fall memberships!  To be a member of the garden, you simply pay a one-time fee of $10 per family for the entire fall season and commit to work only 1 hour per week (or 4 hours per month) for a share of the day’s harvest.  Our garden work days are Tues/Thurs 5:30 – 7:30 pm and Saturday 9-noon. No green thumb required…all instructions and tools provided.  Kidz Thyme is on Thursday nights! (6-7pm) which is an hour of supervised garden fun for our Jr. Gardeners!  Learn more by vising our blog at www.thegardenofconcord.blogspot.com.  “LIKE” The Garden of Concord on Facebook!

The garden has been filled with many blessings over the past few months as we have engaged in working and taking care of God’s creation along with sharing His love to many.  We received 6 new family memberships over the summer bringing our total family membership to 52 (9 Garden Angels, 27 Active, 2 Interns). 

Our Summer Series “Cooking, Canning, and Planning with the Garden of Concord” concluded with a highly informative and inspiring nutrition class that has planted much excitement among our garden members.  Plans are under way to have a successive 6 week (6 or less peeps) nutritional group to “weigh in” (w/o scales) their concerns, successes, and questions on their diet plan as led by Traci Phillips.  Also we are working on an extended summer series for next year in which Traci will go into more details over a trio of workshops of how to better take care of the bodies that God blessed us with by enlightening us on how our bodies react to the foods we eat and tips on ways to eat that is not only healthy, but will glorify God in the process.

Our annual “Tomato Sandwich Supper” and “Harvest Dinner” were both filled with God’s goodness of fantastic food and fellowship (and music by the Galloways and friends!).  Thank you everyone for your donations of food and time as well as gifts to the garden.

As we say so long to summer, we also bid farewell to our chickens.  It was decided that they would be much happier with the Fiorello family in which they can free range and frolic daily.  While we will miss their daily chatter, we look forward to building new beds in their fenced area and creating a shade house to grow spring plantings in the summer.  How great it will be to have fresh lettuce and spinach with our tomatoes!

“Tasty Tuesdays” this past Tuesday was terrific with new several new garden friends joining us!  Our next "Tasty Tuesday"is on October 2^nd during garden hours.   This special day happens on the first Tuesday of each month for folks wanting to “Taste and see that the Lord is good”! (Psalm 34:8)  There are fliers around town inviting anyone wanting to try out the garden for a night and receive some free vegetables.  Invite your friends and family!

Many garden blessing to all of you and we look forward to hopefully sharing some pizza next month baked  in our new pizza brick oven!

It WILL be good!

-Donna Poe

Garden Coordinator

Our Fall season begins!

Hi everyone.   

As the simmer of summer cools down, we heat up again in the garden for our FALL SEASON which began September 1^st and concludes 11/20.  We are still harvesting many summer veggies with a full plate of fall favorites planned and planted to include:  Baby lettuce mix, Beans, Beets, Butternut squash, Carrots, Collards, Cucumbers, Eggplant, Grapes, Herbs (lots of basil!), Kale, Peanuts, Peppers, Romaine, Radishes, Spinach, Sweet potatoes (5 beds full!), Swiss chard, Tomatoes, Turnips, Yellow squash, and Zucchini!

We are now accepting fall memberships!  To be a member of the garden, you simply pay a one-time fee of $10 per family for the entire fall season and commit to work only 1 hour per week (or 4 hours per month) for a share of the day’s harvest.  Our garden work days are Tues/Thurs 5:30 – 7:30 pm and Saturday 9-noon. No green thumb required…all instructions and tools provided.  Kidz Thyme is on Thursday nights! (6-7pm) which is an hour of supervised garden fun for our Jr. Gardeners!  Learn more by vising our blog at www.thegardenofconcord.blogspot.com.  “LIKE” The Garden of Concord on Facebook!

The garden has been filled with many blessings over the past few months as we have engaged in working and taking care of God’s creation along with sharing His love to many.  We received 6 new family memberships over the summer bringing our total family membership to 52 (9 Garden Angels, 27 Active, 2 Interns). 

Our Summer Series “Cooking, Canning, and Planning with the Garden of Concord” concluded with a highly informative and inspiring nutrition class that has planted much excitement among our garden members.  Plans are under way to have a successive 6 week (6 or less peeps) nutritional group to “weigh in” (w/o scales) their concerns, successes, and questions on their diet plan as led by Traci Phillips.  Also we are working on an extended summer series for next year in which Traci will go into more details over a trio of workshops of how to better take care of the bodies that God blessed us with by enlightening us on how our bodies react to the foods we eat and tips on ways to eat that is not only healthy, but will glorify God in the process.

Our annual “Tomato Sandwich Supper” and “Harvest Dinner” were both filled with God’s goodness of fantastic food and fellowship (and music by the Galloways and friends!).  Thank you everyone for your donations of food and time as well as gifts to the garden.

As we say so long to summer, we also bid farewell to our chickens.  It was decided that they would be much happier with the Fiorello family in which they can free range and frolic daily.  While we will miss their daily chatter, we look forward to building new beds in their fenced area and creating a shade house to grow spring plantings in the summer.  How great it will be to have fresh lettuce and spinach with our tomatoes!

“Tasty Tuesdays” this past Tuesday was terrific with new several new garden friends joining us!  Our next "Tasty Tuesday"is on October 2^nd during garden hours.   This special day happens on the first Tuesday of each month for folks wanting to “Taste and see that the Lord is good”! (Psalm 34:8)  There are fliers around town inviting anyone wanting to try out the garden for a night and receive some free vegetables.  Invite your friends and family!

Many garden blessing to all of you and we look forward to hopefully sharing some pizza next month baked  in our new pizza brick oven!

It WILL be good!

-Donna Poe

Garden Coordinator

Tomato Heaven!

Hi everyone.   

This past month has been all about tomatoes and the abundant harvests that God has blessed us with this year.  Despite the crazy high temps earlier in the month, the drenching rains that followed, and the hurricane force winds the other day, our tomato harvest has been amazing and we praise God for every fruit picked!

At this writing, we are looking forward to the 4^th Annual Tomato Sandwich Supper this evening (7/27) as we enjoy our favorite summer sandwich filled with sliced Brandwines and Cherokee Purples dressed with some Duke mayo and pesto!  Thank you in advance for all those that will be joining us tonight to share in God’s Goodness!

We are also looking forward to the 2^nd part of this year’s summer series “Cooking, Canning, and Planning with the Garden of Concord” as we jam together tomorrow (7/28) with a canning class led by Kristin Hicks of “Put it Up-Pittsboro”.  Kristin was actually my soil science teacher last year and in her free time, enjoys canning a variety of fruits, veggies, and nuts and sells at farmer’s markets and co-ops.  Thank you again in advance for those of you that join us tomorrow.

The third and final part of our summer series will be on Saturday, August 11^th from 2-4pm led by garden member, Traci Phillips, as she helps us “plan” our meals and learn more about wellness and nutrition (especially for our kidz!).  Also later in the month on Friday, August 24^th is our always much anticipated “Harvest Celebration Dinner” as we share together with our community, God’s continued blessings of our summer harvests. 

We continue “Tasty Tuesdays” on the first Tuesday of every month as we invite anyone interested in “trying out” the garden for an evening and/or anyone wanting to share in our harvest.   The kidz have enjoyed  “Water Fun Nights” every Tuesday along with “Kidz Thyme” on Thursdays.   Thank you to the leaders and parents that have helped make both of these events so rewarding (and refreshing) to our Jr. Gardeners!

We continually praise God for His gift of The Garden of Concord as he teaches and enables us to work and take care of His creation by growing good food, friendships, and sharing His love with many!  Thank you everyone for your continued prayers and support of our garden! 

It WILL be good!

-Donna Poe

Garden Coordinator

Plenty of PIZZA Plantings Growing in the Garden!

(7/3/12) **Sorry this posting is late!

Hi everyone.  As we move into the heat of the summer, our garden is on fire with many pizza plantings to include plenty of peppers, tons of tomatoes, and the beginning of construction for our brick pizza oven!  We enjoyed a pizza preview at our Pizza Cooking Class this past month as Debbie Cook shared her Pampered Chef products and recipes in creating/serving many different (delicious!) pizzas using our garden goodies for our guests.  Thank you everyone for your appetites and support as we raised over $120 from individual donations along with a percentage of Pampered Chef sales to be applied towards the building of the brick oven by Kyle Gault and the earning of his Eagle badge.

Our “Cooking, Planning, and Canning with the Garden of Concord” summer series continues this month with a canning class scheduled for Saturday, 7/28 from 2-4pm.  More info to be processed soon!  Also this month, we look forward to tasting that first ripened tomato sandwiched in between some Duke mayo (and a little pesto:) at our Tomato Sandwich Supper on Friday, 7/27 at 6pm!  MMMMMMM! 

We began “Tasty Tuesdays” last month and will continue the first Tuesday of each continuing month as we share our garden with the community while encouraging them to “Taste and see that the Lord is good!” (Psalm 34:8)   Please invite your friends and neighbors (including yourself!) to visit the garden and enjoy some of God’s abundance..for free!  We have also begun our “Water Nights” on Tuesdays to help kool the Kidz followed by a thyme of continued fun on Thursday nightz with “Kidz Thyme”!

Thank you everyone for your prayers and support of our garden.  It WILL be good!

-Donna Poe

Garden Coordinator