This is our journal of what we pray is our sojourn of life (Hebrews 11:8-10) along the narrow way (Matthew 7:14), even the old paths (Jeremiah 6:16), submitting to the Bible as a light unto both (Psalms 119:105). It is our prayer that these documented moments in our earthly time benefit whom God might choose to edify, but ultimately that God glorifies Himself through them.

Month: June 2019

Garden – Winter 2018 & Spring 2019

Just a little catch-up on garden events…

Winter 2018

Late last year near the end of December, with the milder weather up to that point, we had an extra squash plant just start to grow from seed planted in the Spring, and after keeping it covered with blankets when necessary, the Lord graciously granted a few squashes, and we thank Him:

Winter 2018 Squash Plant

Winter 2018 Squash Plant

And He granted a turnip to grow too, for which we are thankful as well! Some time ago I just threw down a bunch of turnip seed, and every once in a while a turnip just shows up! 🙂

Winter 2018 Turnip Plant

Winter 2018 Turnip

Spring 2019

We planted garlic at the end of last year, and recently it was time to go get them!

Here is how the area looked in March…lots of weeds, but garlic growing too:

2019 Garlic Garden

2019 Garlic Plant

We pulled one up back then, but there was no bulb on it, so we realized we were still too early. I did put that one garlic back hoping it would continue…

The prickly lettuce that just grows natively here really took over our gardens this year, I believe especially because of the many rains God has graciously granted, so I went into the garlic area and cut everything down that wasn’t garlic, to try to give it all some sun:

Weeding the Garlic Garden

But then about a week and 1/2 later, the garlic plants started looking like they were maybe dying, and we had more rain coming, and I was worried they would start rotting, so I decided to start digging them up…

2019 Garlic Area

This is a planted garlic:

Garlic Plant

I cleared the mulch around it:

Garlic Plant with Mulch Cleared

Dug down the full hand-shovel length at 4-5 points around it, several inches away from the plant, and lifted slightly each time:

Digging Out Garlic Plant

More Digging Out Garlic Plant

And then when the ground around the plant was loose enough, I gently pulled out the bulb:

Dug Out Garlic Plant

Interestingly, some of the garlic plants started to bolt what looked like a new bulb! I wonder if over time that would have planted itself…

Bolting Garlic Plant

I don’t know, but here are some of the harvest results! Not that every plant that sprung up made it up to this point, but after pulling up that one early with nothing on it, and with what I thought was going to potentially be a problem with any garlic bulbs already starting to rot in the ground, the Lord graciously ended up granting that every single plant have at least some bulb on it, including that one I replanted!

Harvested Garlic

More Harvested Garlic

Harvested Garlic in a Bucket

I made a meat dryer some time ago, which is perfect for hanging garlic to dry and cure. Here is after the first part of the garlic was gathered:

Harvested Garlic Hangling in Meat Dryer

And then the rest of it:

More Harvested Garlic Hangling in Meat Dryer

And finally with the meat dryer’s screen panel in place:

Harvested Garlic Hangling in Closed Meat Dryer

We are always very thankful to God for His gracious provisions, and the miracle of taking a seed, which appears dead, and burying it, and then life coming from it, and growing and multiplying itself and being fruitful according to the Lord’s providence alone (ie. I can’t make a garlic bulb just appear), like His word planted in the hearts of men and His Spirit bringing forth new life as He wills, and like His Son, the Lord Christ, dead and buried, but miraculously raised out of the ground again to life! We are eternally grateful to God for the salvific life He brings through Jesus Christ!

— David

Providence’s Perennial Provisions: Pink Primrose

While our work for our provision requires the sweat of our faces (Gen 3:19), in God’s glorious creation and graciousness, He has provided some things to just grow naturally as edible for humans. We here are always looking out for those kind provisions, and we’ve talked some about them in other perennial blog posts, and so we have another one we have discovered on the land — Pink Primrose.

Recently I was mowing the orchard area. With the gracious rains the Lord has brought this Spring, this is what I was mowing down…many of the weeds half the height of many of the trees!

Orchard Spring 2019 with Lots of Weeds

… and during the mowing, I came upon a pink primrose patch that the honeybees were making great use of, and so as to not take away their food supply (we do whatever we can here to help the valuable honeybee!), I left the patch. If you look closely, you can see some of the bees busy working:

Pink Primrose Flowers with Bees
More Pink Primrose Flowers with Bees

We had learned about pink primrose in the past, but I thought now would be a good time to do this blog post. Here’s a patch of them:

Pink Primrose Patch

And this one shows the leaves well:

Pink Primrose Plants

And here is Foraging Texas’ article on pink primrose. You can eat the leaves before flowering, and you can even eat the flower petals! The plants apparently provide vitamin F and some fatty acids. You just have to be careful about how much of it you eat, although the leaves are pretty small, so it takes a bit of work to collect much of it anyway.

But, once again, we are thankful for this free gift from God in graciously granting something He is singly growing for us!

— David