Just Growing - August Update

Hi all!

It’s time for a little update about the Just Growing gardens behind the church. I hope you’ve wandered through recently, among the huge plants in the beds! It’s truly amazing at this time of year - the hollyhocks are in full bloom, the squash have taken over their little corner of the lawn, and there are tomatoes at every stage of ripeness! 

As much as the garden is gorgeous at this time of year, August is when gardeners or small-scale farmers tend to start feeling pretty fatigued. Luckily for me, container gardening doesn’t take too much tending! I’ve been finding that the boxes look after themselves more or less. I water regularly, weed occasionally, and harvest once a week, but otherwise there’s just not that much work to do! This has been nice in allowing me to focus some of my energy on other projects, like an upcoming recipe collection to give to the recipients of the vegetables we grow!

Speaking of the veggie recipients, we’ve changed tack on donations. We were finding that the scale at which we’re growing is a funny in-between - too big to just donate to one household, but too small to be donating meaningful amounts to The Madison. Luckily, we found a connection to someone who works with a number of hungry families through Jordan’s Principle! Our friend Andrew is now picking up veggies every Friday and bringing them around to the families he works with; we know that they’re making a real impact in the lives of people who really need them!

Every year, the garden feels like a miracle. I recall a few years ago, when a friend of mine was the farm coordinator at Camp Assiniboia, talking with her about our collective lack of experience gardening. “Basically all I do is plan the garden, plant the seeds, water, and then God does the rest,” she said to me. And, although I know some of the science of how plants grow, I still think that’s largely true! We do our part (sometimes minimal) and then God miraculously breathes life into the soil. As a relatively new gardener, I frankly don’t always know what I’m doing. So it may sound like bragging, but I mean it as miraculous when I say I’m amazed at the garden this year! Some of it is me, yes, and some of it is our volunteers, but much of it is simply a lavish green ode to the miracle of life!
Thanks be to God. 

Marnie

Urban Agriculture Coordinator

A Rocha Manitoba