Manna Meal

WHAT A SUCCESSFUL YEAR of growing—especially growing our circle of Manna Meal gardening friends! Looking back at 2009, we can be very proud of what was accomplished in so many realms. First we couldn’t have done any of it without Tom! Thanks Tom! Thanks for your infinite kindness and patience and that really nifty outhouse. Thanks to Bill Shanklin who started the majority of all our little plants in his greenhouse and helped us construct the deer fence and row cover framework. Many friends and volunteers donated seed and plants but most importantly–their time and sweat. We discovered that women drive tractors, help build fences and row cover framework.  We saw the men build tomato cages, drive fence post, construct a deer fence and haul compost. Every one of us became a student of planting, weeding, harvesting and composting. . . and we acknowledge our Master Gardener friends who stayed right with us till the first storm crushed our row cover framework and ended our attempts at winter gardening.

                We remember freezing hundreds of pounds of veggies for the soup kitchen and offering bean and tomato canning demonstrations for the community. We remember walking between the doubled nylon net that was covered in pole beans and bugs. We planted bush beans three times for a bumper crop. We enjoyed growing the beautiful flowers and sending them to many worthy events throughout the summer. We harvested red radishes and several types of lettuce in early December—and guess what—there were no bugs in December!                                  

We remember Kelly, James, Nancy, Sue, Ann, Stan, Bill, Gary, Carol, Vanda, Carter, Martha, Beth, Molly, Scott, Betty, Abigail, Peyton, Judy, Liz, Camellia, Susan, Connie, Corleen, Sam, Steve, Sandy, Elizabeth, Ben, Mary Jo, Helen, Tim, Aurora, Brandt, Eilene, Pam, Laureen, Ed, Eric, Clark, Courtney, Debbie, Susie, Bill, Harriet, Janet, Mary, Heather, Tammy, Mike, Raj, Neva, Charlotte, Nelle, Lila, Adam, Barbara, Wade, Clarke, Amanda, Sean, Annie, Carl, Megan, Hannah, Travis, Misty, Michael, Lillian, Eleanor, Ian, Marranda, Mimi, Tory, Zachary, Alexandria, Amelia, Ali, Bob, Lee, Jean, Tom, Myra and a few that got away without signing in, for your jobs well done.  We love you for giving your labor of gardening love to the Manna Meal Community Garden that supplies the soup kitchen.

Please come back! We hope to refine our row-cover structure for early spring veggies…we are anxious to see how two full rows of garlic [thanks Neva] and one row of onions fared through the winter. We planted some turnip seed in with our winter green manure cover crop and hope to find some little treasures when turning the soil in spring. We want to spend more time developing a composting plan in 2010 too. May God bless!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 9th, 2010 at 6:22 pm and is filed under Garden. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.