The Very Busy Spider

We have our very own "Very Busy Spider" in the Heritage CDC Learning Garden!  When I was out in the garden contemplating whether or not to start pulling everything up I found her.  A spider that had spun a web between the butterfly bush and the green pepper plant.  In the middle of the web is a series of ball shaped sacks.  I love spiders.  I love them in books.  I love them in songs.  I love them in the garden.  I admire their work ethic.  I admire their diligence.  Needless to say, I left everything in the garden for one more week...who knows what other spiders might need a place to spin a web?

"The autumn days grow short and cold;
I'ts Christmas time again.
Then snows of winter slowly melt.
The day grows short, And then...
He turns the seasons around,
And so she changes her gown;
Mother Earth and Father Time.
How very special we are
For just a moment to be
Part of life's eternal rhyme."
Charlotte's Web by EB White

It's an Eggplant!

Is it a bird?  Is it a plane?  Is it a boiled egg?  It's an eggplant!  We have white eggplants growing in our garden and we are pretty excited.  About the only thing I know about eggplants is that is best served in lasagne or as a parmigiana and is usually big, oblong and purple.  Our eggplants are small, round and white...basically like an overgrown boiled egg.  Here are a few fun facts about eggplants for your education and entertainment.

1. Eggplants aren’t REALLY vegetables, they’re berries. Which isn’t that strange, considering other fruits are commonly mistaken for vegetables – like tomatoes.
2. Eggplants and tomatoes are actually related. They both belong to the nightshade family with the famous literary poison – deadly nightshade. But don’t worry, eggplant isn’t toxic (at least not in normal amounts).
3. A study published in 1993 in the New England Journal of Medicine showed that eggplant has by far the highest level of nicotine of any vegetable. But it’s such a small amount that there’s really no need for concern. You would have to eat between 20 and 40 pounds of eggplant to consume the amount of nicotine you’d get smoking one cigarette.
4. But eggplant had a bad rap before it’s comparison with cigarettes. Ancient Persian philosophers ascribed all kinds of ailments to them – from pimples to epilepsy.
5. People in the U.K. called them aubergines. The word “aubergine” goes all the way back to the ancient Indian language Sanskrit. The eggplant is believed to have originated in India, where it is considered to be the King of Vegetables.
6. The word “eggplant” that we use in North America comes from British-colonized India, where at the time, a small, white, egg-like variety of the vegetable was all the rage.
7. In Renaissance Italy, it was called a mala insana or “crazy apple”.
8. Japan even has a proverb about eggplant:
   “The happiest omen for a New Year is first Mount Fuji, then the falcon, and lastly eggplant.”

The rain rain rain came down down down

"The rain rain rain came down down down
In rushing, rising riv'lets,
'Til the river crept out of it's bed..."
~Winnie the Pooh

Well, maybe not quite like that but we've had 2 days of rain this week...hallelujah!  Our peppers are multiplying.  Our tomatoes are finally turning red.  Our cucumbers are blooming but we've no produce as of yet.  I'm not ready to throw in the towel on the cucumbers just yet.  Maybe a few more Winnie the Pooh rain showers and we'll have some cucumbers to discover and donate.

There's always a first time.

We are nearing the end of the first week at Heritage CDC in 16 years without our beloved Ms. Bama.  It has been a week of reflection and time to remember our sweet friend through stories and sharing memories and although it has been tough at times, there have been more smiles than tears in our first week without her.  We miss you already.

The first delivery of our summer produce will be next week.  The hot weather has not been kind to our cucumbers, they really seem to be struggling in the heat.  The peppers however, seem to be loving the sunshine.  We will have quite the haul for the Forest Park Ministry Center with serrano peppers, banana peppers, green bell peppers and cayenne peppers.  It's been fun to see the different varieties as they have bloomed.  Trying to be patient to watch green things turn red has been tough and trying to explain to 3 year olds that it's "not ready to pick" makes me feel like a broken record. 

Our first time to harvest our herbs will be next week also.  I've been doing a little research on trimming rosemary to use straight from the bush.  I'm hesitant because I'm not really sure how much to trim...but hey, there's a first time for everything, right?

"There's rosemary, that's for remembrance; pray, love, remember, and there is pansies, that's for thoughts."  ~ Shakespeare



http://www.ehow.com/how_8182887_use-rosemary-off-bush.html

Baby it's hot outside.

I think it rained just about every day the week of June 11th.  I don't think it has rained since and the plants are starting to show it.  With the help of the Bluebirds and Robins we've watered the garden but the cucumbers are just not coming in yet.  We have a few banana peppers, a couple of green peppers and our cherry tomatoes are doing okay.  Keep your fingers crossed that we are blessed with a cool rain very soon...our rain barrel is getting low too!

Sophmore Season

It's our second spring planting and we are hot! hot! hot!  No, seriously, we're hot.  We have a cayenne pepper plant, a red chili pepper plant and a serrano pepper plant.  We also planted green peppers and banana peppers and for that odd bit of flavor a white eggplant.  Here's the kicker...I just found out that if you plant hot peppers near mild or sweet peppers they will be hot also.  So guess who is going to have spicy banana peppers, spicy green peppers and spicy white eggplant?  Yep...us, but I don't think the families at the Forest Park Ministry Center will mind.  They might just appreciate a little spice in their usually sweet and mild dinners.

It's also our second season of composting.  We were able to fortify all of our pots with our homemade fertilizer and evidently some of the seeds in the compost survived the break down phase.  We have 2 tomato plants, a pumpkin and 5 or 6 squash plants coming up in the most unusual places.  What can we say?  We love to surprise ourselves!

New additions to our garden for this spring.  We put a bigger pot around the base of our butterfly bush.  It's looking awfully proud and standing tall as the center of our garden.  We created 2 strawberry "fountains" and lined the sidewalk with impatiens.  The DandyLion class of 2012 each chose and planted an impatien as a way to say "so long!" to the CDC.

If you get a moment, walk out the back door and look to your right as you walk down the sidewalk.  See some of the wonderful things that God is doing and your children are discovering this spring at Heritage CDC.

Time to wake up the earth...

Soon it will be
Time to welcome, to
Ripen and sweeten
And so we
Wait for the
Berries we love to
Enter the garden
Red and juicy
Red and sweet
Yes!  we have STRAWBERRIES!

Seriously...we have strawberries in the garden...welcome spring!