The garden is a Memorial Garden, a garden of benevolence, a garden of love. It is a gift to our community from the God of Love, Jesus the Christ. The first “seeds” for our garden have come from members of the congregation and a designation from the congregation’s memorial funds. These seeds have brought us to the beginning of a journey that will last for many years. Guided by the Holy Spirit we will plow forth until row upon row of our work is accomplished and our community is better nourished. The Lord invites you all to be part of His work on earth strengthening and feeding His children. The garden is made possible by generous donations from the community, and grants from the ELCA Domestic Hunger Grants, the Alaska Food Policy Council through the Municipality of Anchorage, the Alaska Women's Giving Circle, The Alaska Master Gardeners of Anchorage, the generous support by the congregation of Lutheran Church of Hope, and support from the Alaska Synod of the ELCA.

Food from the garden in 2019 was sent to Lutheran Social Services Food Pantry, the Tudor Road Gospel Rescue Mission, and to Bean's Cafe.

Tuesday, July 28, 2020

July at an end

It's the end of July. The days are getting shorter, though we really don't notice yet. The weather has been very good for gardeners. There has been lots of sun and pretty much normal rainfall for July. Still have to water but certainly not as much as last year. We finally have the weeds "under control" and can start focusing on increasing our crop.

Turnips
Turns out, as usual, the turnips are doing quite well. The harvest has been more than 850 pounds to date. The tur


nip patch is now empty. I will fertilize the area again and plant a second crop. Last year was the first time I did this but I didn't fertilize again. The turnips were small but plentiful. Hopefully with the additional fertilizer they will do better. If the frost holds off till the middle of September we should do well. The harvest so far is much more than the two crops last year.
I changed the variety of broccoli (arcadia) and the heads were much, much better. However there doesn't seem to be many subsequent smaller heads. Will have to w
Washing Station

ait and see with the broccoli. I could certainly have more food if I just planted more cabbage or sprouts. Not sure of the best solution. Will kick it around for a while and see what shakes out.

Zucchini

We did a little experiment with the zucchini this year. I had about 25 seeds left over after the initial potting up and starting the plants. The week we put the squash plants in the ground I germinated the "extra" seeds between moist paper towels in a plastic bag. Once they had a root we took them out and put them in the ground. They did indeed grow just fine. We are harvesting summer squash from those plants just like we are from the seedlings we planted. Now you cannot tell the difference between the "regular starts" and the germinated seeds. The zukes so far is just shy of 200 pounds.




A little update on the potatoes. They got planted too close together so last week I went through and thinned them. I removed every other plant and now you can't tell I even took any out. I probably should have waited a couple of weeks and then could have had a crop of new potatoes. Oh, well! They are just beginning to blossom and that's always a good sign. Look forward to the harvest in October.

The only thing in the garden this year that seems to be having difficulty is the beets. They are sparse and slow. Same thing happened last year. I will have to do some study and try to figure out what the problem may be. Won't certainly have a resolution to report on until next summer about this time. But I will definitely write it up next year.

All is well with the garden. The Lord has definitely blessed us this year. Enjoy the rest of the summer.
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