In the Garden with Penny

I was asked today to talk about prayer with a group of young Sunday School children.  I was interviewed by a young man with a set of very simple questions.  But my answers were anything but simple.  Doing that brought me back to my first real encounter with prayer.  And of all places it happened in the garden.  I grew up next to a woman named Penny Buffalo.  She was a master gardener, always digging in her flower beds and mixing in her latest concoction.  I absolutely loved spending time with her out there.  She is my perpetual image of the Holy Spirit as she buzzed around her garden with the grace of a hummingbird.

Both Penny and I have moved on from our days in her garden.  But I will always remember sitting in her lap as a four year old, smelling the flowers we picked, and listening to the beat of her heart as I laid my head close to her.  So I told the children that my prayers are like listening for God's heart beat.  If you are very quiet you can almost hear it.  May your heart beat in time with God's and may you teach others to sit in the garden and listen as well.

Nearly ready to plant.... Right?

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Yeah... maybe not.  This is the garden mid-February after a hefty February thaw.  We have had 60 + inches of snow this winter and this is what is left of it.  Hopefully we won't have too much more this winter.  It is odd to live in a place where the spring thaw is just as much hoped for as it is feared.  We have hundreds of volunteers working daily to fill sandbags at Sandbag Central.    Thankfully I live outside of the flood path, but who knows what will happen if this flood turns out to be as epic as forecasters believe it might be.  On a lighter note, I got  a bunch of my seeds in the mail  today. Yay!

Lordy Lordy something from Forde

So this is only anecdotal in nature.  I've never actually seen this quote in real life but it has been passed on to me by none other than the lovely Bishop Wohlrabe who just happens to office right next to mine.  But as second hand anecdotal quotes go, this is not a bad one from Gerhard Forde.

"You can't make a flower grow by pulling on it!"

How true!  After our week of 40 degree weather I am now settling back in for several more weeks of winter.  I will try to be satisfied with watching my seedlings attempt to poke through their potting soil and watering my scrawny houseplants.  I will post pictures of what the garden looks like this time of year.  Although I could just as well post a blank white screen because our 60 plus inches of snow is only partially melted.

Some Possible Contenders

So I am intrigued by these carrots.  As their name would suggest (Parisian Carrots) they are French in origin.  They are highly sought after in the gourmet market.  If nothing else they are cute little suckers.  They are now on their way from sustainableseedco.com

                                                                                                                                    This variety of bean is called a Christmas Bean.  It is a pole variety that is much like a Lima bean.  I came across them first when I was at the Dandelion General Store outside of Fosston MN.  I love these beans and can't wait to experiment with a bamboo tee pee.

The last contender for today is the Tomatillo.  These little suckers often get mistaken for green tomatoes.  And they have a flavor that gives off slight hints of tomato with a kiwi kick to it.  These guys are the ingredient of every descent salsa you have had at a restaurant.  Ever wonder why you cant get your salsa to taste like theirs?  It's probably because you don't have these in your arsenal.  I will be planting 3 or four of these plants just to make sure that we end up with two.  They are not self pollinating so you need to have at least two plants to produce viable fruit.

Plans and Whatnot

In the past few years gardening has become a big part of my life.  I don't know why I am so drawn to it.  Perhaps I have always had a fascination with the creative process.  I still remember the stories of the Boxcar Children that I used to read and wish that I had the same fortune to find myself in survival mode, planting and reaping to live.  I even remember planting carrot seeds across the street from our house outside the neighborhood fort.  Well, those carrots never quite made it to maturity.  Somehow inquiring minds and the temptation to peek don't quite mix when growing root crops.

As I have grown more accustomed to gardening in the northern states I have learned a lot about this land and myself.  With each new season we get the chance to celebrate resurrection.  No, these aren't the same gardens that we had last year.  But the seeds of last year bring new life to sustain us for the year to come.  And with the bleakness of the winter deep freeze comes a word of hope from catalogs like Burpee, and Gurney's, and Territorial.  So with sure and certain hope of the last frost in site I will plan this garden and reap its bounty.