Feeding the Body

Invitation to enjoy our bean teepee!

We're beginning to come to the end of the harvest season in the First Church garden. The tomatoes seem to putting great effort into many last efforts towards reproduction with tons of ripening fruit, but also tons of brown, crunchy leaves. And everything seems to be growing so slowly. Not like the beginning of the summer with unbridled joyful growth that you can almost see happening from moment to moment.
Our veggies made multiple appearances on Sunday at coffee hour and at our happening neighborhood-oriented block party, so the harvest for the food pantry this week was small, but beautiful.

I am most proud of our broccoli harvest this week. I had to spray tons of aphids off the plants in order to bring these beauties to the food pantry, but broccoli is a finicky (delicious) thing to grow. Check them out:

(Yes, I am FOUR-pictures proud of this harvest!)

We also donated collards, hot and sweet peppers, a little kale, some beautiful tomatoes, cucumbers, beans, parsley and sage:

Another reason that this week's food pantry donation was small was that some of our produce once again went to help the lovely folks who cook for the homeless shelter down the street each month! (Thank you, Megan, Shannon and everybody else!) They made an awesome smelling meal that included a quinoa dish with lots of kale, chard, bell peppers, and basil. Check out their pictures:

Cooking greens

The finished product!