Garden Dreams

I woke up this morning dreaming about my 2010 vegetable garden. I dream every year that this will be the year that my garden will be beautiful and productive, and every year ends with my garden in weedy shambles. Last year was different in that it started out beautiful and stayed reasonably beautiful until early August. That's when mildew and late blight hit. July 2009
Last year I think my garden would have ended the season better than any garden of mine in the past, if everything depended on my power, but as the verse in Matthew 5:45b says; "For He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust", and the rain fell, the temperature stayed cool and moist most of the summer. I learned an important lesson. I set out last year to prove that I could do something successfully after a couple of difficult years were it felt that everything I turned my hand to fell apart and disappeared. Determination counts very little with our Lord. He asks us to rely on Him, and gain our strength and success through our dependence on Him and His attributes.

The most three important components of gardening are: soil, water and sunlight and these elements are free, provided by God. We have some control over these elements, but when it comes down to success or failure, we can't help but acknowledge that our garden crop is in His sovereign control.

If I look at last year in perspective, it was not a waste of effort. I learned alot about companion planting and gardening friends and foes. Below is a June photo of a lettuce blend and pansies which can be harvested together for a salad. Remember to snip them off and not pull them so they can regrow.

The onion greens, celery and calendulas (which self-sowed from the year before) can all be snipped off and added to a garden salad. This trio did well together, taking up space so weeds could not grow as fast (please note my garden has weeds mixed in, they grow faster than I can pull!)

Left to right: I had over 200 sunflowers that self sowed from the year before. The sad news is, they succumbed to mildew in late August due to lack of sunshine and access moisture. My beans are planted in a double row. I WILL NEVER do it again! They died from mildew. I think the would have been productive if they had more room for airflow. The broccoli and petunias did very well together, although next year I'm going to plant the petunias further away from the broccoli foliage so they both have more room to grow. The potatoes in the background grew magnificently. We planted them early enough that they were done growing by the time the late blight hit, so the potato crop was not effected by the fungus. Below is a photo of a bumper crop of red potatoes. this photo was taken mid-July.

I will keep adding to the 2010 garden plan, so stay tuned!