Yo howdy all y’all – it is a beautiful day!
Everyday around noon – when the summertime heat index accelerates it’s rise – the shade from our pecans begins to embrace the seating along our San Antonio hillside, and often there is even a soft breeze. It is comforting to pause and pray, to sit beside the sunflowers and other “resilient bloomers”, to watch the pedestrians passing by engage with our urban sanctuary, to find and share our own sense of peace provided by Grace.
For us all, it can be affirming that many of our downtown neighbors now sit in our gardens, and regularly stroll beside the many plantings. Not just our neighbors forced by circumstance or mental illness to live on the streets (some of whom participate in hardening, but also attorneys and their clients on their way to and from court, and some of the folks doing the difficult work performed in the County Attorney’s office next door. Especially rewarding are the individuals and families finding service from the experience and programs of the DA’s Victim Services Unit.
We’ve been able to maintain a produce and herb harvest of 10-20 pounds per week to the Austin Baptist Chapel’s Angel’s House Soup Kitchen – really a minuscule contribution given their daily providing both daily breakfast and lunch to hundreds, but the fresh produce and herbs are especially appreciated.
Very few of our Spring tomatoes have produced as anticipated – most of the plants will be pulled up soon – but I have been surprised by the variety of wildlife that will partake in a peck, or a bite or two. I’ve also witnessed several species of birds going from plant to plant – pecking each reddish fruit, but also squirrels, possum, raccoons – and one early morning I saw a red fox! I’m not sure if it was tasting our tomatoes, but there has been a family of red fox living along Shoal Creek for many years.
The heat is on: anticipate wilting. Our sunflowers are gradually being culled. The great mullein, transformed from the fuzzy pale green rosettes last year into their second year towering spires of yellow blooms, will soon wilt and dry into what I see as beautiful rust-colored spears of texture. We will still have spectrums of color from a variety of natives thru the summer (hopefully), but more subdued thru the oven, with new waves of blooms beginning in the Fall (hopefully). Seeds from garden are harvested and continue to be scattered in the blocks of medians on 12th Street. Guerrilla gardening outreach.
I anticipate a steady harvest of kale, chard, eggplant, okra, beans and herbs thru the summer months. We have a surprising crop of watermelon and cantaloupe growing; we might even have some pumpkins! We’ll witness whatever happens from breaking up our fallow ground. So far it’s been many types of good. I am thankful to each and all of you for the trust, the honor, and the joy in allowing me to help in softening the edges of our Christian church, and in enabling my participation in the transformation of Austin’s Urban Sanctuary.
“Remember this: Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously. Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.” – 2 Corinthians 9:6-11.
Be safe be well know joy.
Phil