The question may be: Was there a harvest at Shepherd of the Hills? Some may wonder if there was a planting and growing season....

Well, here is the update:

Last spring the question was raised if the land next to the church held any value nutritionally for growing a garden of some sort. I presented some plans to the council as to what to do with this property, including an outdoor worship center, walking path, and a garden. They decided that a test garden plot would be in order to determine if there would be any growing opportunity with God's hand involved and little human effort.

With the help of the preschool kids we planted some pumpkin, squash, and watermelon from seed and started the growing season last April. We were given the opportunity to transplant some raspberries bushes and Pastor E.T Keller and I took some time to dig out and replant some of these bushes. On Memorial Day weekend after the threat of frost was over, I planted and watered the seedlings that had sprouted and grown nicely inside. I carried water to these various seedlings about once a week until early July. We had about 50 plantings all together. We were blessed with rain at the right time and not too hot of a summer that allowed these plantings to continue to grow and blossom and flourish. It was exciting to see. Some of the blossoms didn't mature and but many did. We harvested about 25 pumpkins of various sizes and aprox. 10 watermelons, mostly single serving size. The pumpkins were left in the fellowship room for sale, and the watermelons were sampled by my family. Some of the watermelons were absolutely delicious and some were either overripe or not ripe enough. It was fun to watch and little effort to keep growing. I did plant some sweet corn in the middle of June and it never got more than 3 feet tall and many small cobs with no mature kernels.

My analysis of the test plot is that melon and pumpkin will do ok but maybe not much else unless it is greatly fertilized. My dream would be a huge watermelon patch and or pumpkin patch that we could sell at harvest time to fund other ongoing church projects

ie. youth group, fellowship activities, world/local hunger, or missions. I would like to see this garden idea continue with maybe a bigger plot and more focused plantings. If anyone is interested in being part of a garden club maybe this could be an opportunity for a small group to work regularly together and maybe provide a fund-raising product for some on going mission of the church.

Lets keep talking and growing together. By the way, the raspberries didn't make it through this season but will see if they come up in the spring.

The test plot gardener,

Todd Trautmann