Feeding the Body

With all this heat (and frequent extra water) the garden has been growing very quickly. It is finally time to bring our first big bag of vegetables to Project SOUP, the food pantry of our mission partner the Somerville Homeless Coalition!

See the 'Winterbor' kale to the left? It has grown big and thick. So have the other two kinds of kale, collards, lettuce, and bok choi.

The lettuce has fed the Sunday morning crowd and folks went home with the small thinnings tonight after Rest and re/New. These are small greens that I had pulled them from between the greens to let the remaining plants grow to full size.

But the biggest and brightest of the lot, the 'cream of the crop' so to speak, is is going to be delivered tomorrow to Project SOUP. We have two grocery bags full of lettuce, a bunch of the best kale I could find, and all of the full-size bok choi specimens (it is a smallish variety).

This delivery is partly to fulfill our promise to the original funders of the garden. We are required to give 10% of our produce to the poor. Realistically, urban gardens often make this 'donation' without trying.

All that said, food pantries are accustomed to receiving produce significantly past it's prime. Tomorrow I will deliver a big bag of super fresh, super local, organic veggies to one of these pantries. What does it mean to give our very best away and only keep the punier specimens for ourselves?

P.S. We will likely have a glut of all kinds of gorgeous produce in the very near future. There will plenty for our church community and extended communities to enjoy! Please let me know if you'd like to cook with our produce for any kind of church function and help yourself to snips of herbs.