A bit of an update from the garden on a busy Palm Sunday at the start of Holy Week......
Top row left to right - Potatoes coming up, flowering trees at the church, and squash and cucumbers starting to find their way...
Bottom row left to right - a view of the Little Red Hen garden, carrots starting, and bright California poppies are everywhere...
We'll have a huge salad for our Diamond diners senior lunch this week - photos on that to come!

Thanks to our wonderful friends Paul and Kathleen, we are sharing a new plot and we have two new wine barrels at the Little Red Hen garden.  It's exciting!  We had a great planting day on March 14 with Betsy, Jen and youngest St. Aidan's gardener Franklin.  It was the perfect gardening weather and we had a grand time.  Franklin did a fabulous job of hands in the dirt, digging in the dirt, planting and watering.  Check out the slide show, and we'll update as the plants grow!

I wanted to share a photo of these beautiful flowers from our wine barrels, and then I remembered a wonderful poem that my friend David sent to me - so here it is....(thank you D....)

THERE IS A GARDEN
There is a garden at the bottom of the sea,
And a garden in each heart,
There is a garden in a drop of rain,
And on a grain of sand.
Earth garden, river garden,
Valley garden, song garden;
Touch softly, and walk gently,
For there is a garden wherever you may be.

I loved the Lenten blog from ERD yesterday ----- a story of a garden in New York City....Very similar to what we're doing at St. Aidan's and St. Mark's......(photo of a recent joint harvest below....) And the title - "I believe that no one should go hungry" is just right.  Here's the blog - 

I BELIEVE THAT NO ONE SHOULD GO HUNGRY
When you increase the number of gardens, you increase the number of heavens, too!
-Mehmet Murat ildan

When I first learned of Episcopal Relief & Development's Abundant Life Garden Project, I was working at a church surrounded by acres of lush green countryside--a perfect spot to tend some earth and grow good food. However, it was not to be. My next church was surrounded by skyscrapers, steel and concrete--and blessed with a terrace on the third floor. When I told people I was starting a garden, I was greeted with skepticism.
We had surprising success with pots of herbs and cherry tomatoes. Not enough to serve the two hundred or so who attended the soup kitchen for dinner every day, but enough to add to the salad for the ten shelter guests who came every night for a satisfying meal and a comfortable bed.

Enough, too, that the children sold bunches of fresh basil, rosemary, thyme and mint to parishioners during coffee hour. Enough to give back from those proceeds to Episcopal Relief & Development. It was lovely for city kids to grow a garden in pots and lovely to give the women who stayed with us something fresh and delicious to eat. Lovely to know that
our small contribution helped others grow food for themselves. Heaven grows in just this way.

 by Wendy Claire Barrie
Wendy Claire Barrie has spent twenty-five years in Episcopal Christian
formation and presently serves as the Director of Children, Youth and
Family Ministries at St. Bartholomew's Church in New York City.

I've had two East Coast trips over the last several weeks - one to Mississippi for a Habitat week where we were greeted with ice and very cold days - and one to upstate NY, NJ and Washington D.C. all of which had very cold and messy weather situations!  I actually meant to post the photo of these beautiful greens from the St. Aidan's gardens - for the Diamond Diners Senior lunch program - before my most recent trip - but I ran out of time.  Now I hope that my East coast friends don't "un-friend" me for posting this photo...Sending warm thoughts and invitations to come get warm any time!