NOT TOO LATE- MESSAGE FROM JENNIE- Galatians 6:7

Be not deceived; it's not too late to plant a garden! You can still plant hot-weather loving cucumber seeds, green bean seeds, tomato plants,zucchini seeds, pepper plants and other yummy stuff. Yields will be alittle later and somewhat less, but you can still reap bountifully whatyou sow! It doesn't take much space to nurture a tomato plant or pepper plant in a pot on an apartment balcony. Tuck a cabbage plant, pepper plant or tomato plant in your flower garden for a tasty treat.

The French Intensive Biodynamic method developed by Alan Chadwick really does work; for instance, you can grow as many carrots in one square footas you can in a 12 foot row in a regular garden. We used his method for years in our backyard city garden and still do for many of our 2X2 gardenboxes.Cucumbers are easy to train in a tomato basket or a pot with a trellis if you don't have much room. (Brother Ballstaedt has already one the prizefor first cucumber of the season so the pressure if off the rest of us!)Bush green beans look lush and lovely in any landscape and are heatlovers. You can plant bean seeds 3-4 inches apart in pockets throughoutyour landscape or you could grow in rows as close as 12" to 18" apart.

You go vertical and plant pole beans (stringless is best) with foursix-foot long 1X 6's. Tie together at the top, weave string betweenthe poles, leaving an opening at the front, then plant 3-4 beans at thebottom of each stick for a bean teepee. Your little ones will love the shady shelter and learn to love eating green beans in the process!Garden centers will be eliminating/ reducing their stock of tomato plants,pepper plants, eggplant, etc very soon! I stopped by Darby CreekNursery on Scioto Darby last week. I asked them if they would be having an end of the season sale on their garden plants, they said it would be another week or two and they would be reducing prices drastically. Itold them I would keep checking back because many people were interestedin gardening and needed the resulting food but couldn't afford full priceplants. Take the attitude that it never hurts to ask for a discount in today's economy if it allows you to help and serve others. (After thatlast ditch sale, they usually toss what's left in the trash or on theircompost heap---hmm, free plants for the asking maybe?)

The greatest gardening book I can recommend is the Holy Bible. It has information on sowing and reaping, walking in the garden in the cool of the day, tips on what ground is best to sow your seed upon and detailed descriptions of a garden being created. The most significant garden eventin the history of the world took place over the brook Cedron and somewhere near the Mount of Olives as the Lord stood between us and Heavenly Father, to plead and intercede for our salvation.

Some other good garden books are available to checkout from the library---get yourself on the waiting list---Latter Day Saints aren't the only ones interested in gardening, nurturing our children, feeding ourfamilies quality food and saving a bundle these days! Here are a few suggestions:

For Adults:THE POSTAGE STAMP GARDEN BOOK by Duane and Karen Newcomb (small scalegardens, usually only 4X4, practical but prolific)FRESH FOOD FROM SMALL SPACES by R.J. Ruppenthal (apartment, condo, urbansolutions for gardening, container gardens and more)LAST CHILD IN THE WOODS by Richard Louv (evidence linking the lack ofnature in children's lives to obesity, ADD and depression)

To share with your Children:SUNFLOWER HOUSES, INSPIRATIONS FROM THE GARDEN by Sharon Lovejoy (a greatreminder of the beauty of Creation and fun ideas)ROOTS, SHOOTS, BUCKETS AND BOOTS by Sharon Lovejoy (terrific mini themedgardens and projects for kids with tasty bonuses)SUNFLOWER HOUSE by Eve Bunting (a lovely book about "growing" a magicalrefuge just for children)

Jennie D