In the garden

There is a popular old hymn called "In the Garden" written by C. Austin Miles.  According to what I've read, the hymn was written in a gloomy basement that didn't even have a window, much less a view of a garden.  Thinking about that is a sermon in and of itself.  It shouldn't matter what circumstance we may find ourselves in, we should still be able to commune with our maker in whatever "garden" is around us.  This song was sung by a number of famous people from Roy Rogers and Dale Evans to Perry Como and Elvis Presley.  It is carved on a bench at the grave site of Earl K. Long (Huey P. Long's brother who was the 45th governor of Louisiana), in Winnfield, Louisiana, as it was his favorite hymn.  I also remember it being sung at my grandma's funeral. 

You can hear it here: In the Garden

The lyrics go like this:

I come to the garden alone
While the dew is still on the roses
And the voice I hear falling on my ear
The Son of God discloses.
Refrain

And He walks with me, and He talks with me,
And He tells me I am His own;
And the joy we share as we tarry there,
None other has ever known.

He speaks, and the sound of His voice,
Is so sweet the birds hush their singing,
And the melody that He gave to me
Within my heart is ringing.

Refrain

I’d stay in the garden with Him
Though the night around me be falling,
But He bids me go; through the voice of woe
His voice to me is calling.

If I might take the liberty, I'd like to slightly alter the lyrics to the first line to this:
I walk through the garden alone, while the dew is still on the broccoli...


Dew-kissed broccoli head forming

 I like to walk through the garden and check things out, especially on the weekend.  With the shortened days, when I get home it is already dark and I can't see anything.  I like to watch stuff grow.  The row in the center below are Brussels sprouts, while the one on the right is broccoli.
 

Cole crops

Cole crops is a term used to describe items in the mustard family, including broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, cauliflower, kale, and collards.  They are cold season crops.  The row on the left below is kale and the row on the right is cauliflower.

More cole crops

The next photos are some colorful shots of Swiss Chard.  Chard is in the beet family, but does not form an edible root.  Instead you eat the leaves and colorful stalks and they are delicious.  I plant the Bright Lights variety which has stems in bright yellow: 

Yellow Swiss Chard

and beet red:


Red Swiss Chard

Speaking of beet red, the maroon-red foliage below are a special breed of beets called Bull's Blood beets.  The contrast of the red against the green of the Black Seeded Simpson lettuce on the right really brightens things up on these two rows.

Bull's Blood beets

I took a photo below of one of the rows of carrots.  This row contains the orange berlicum carrots.  The cabbage is on the right.


Carrots and Cabbage

The next couple of shots are some nice heads of lettuce for salads.  I'm not sure of the exact names of the next two lettuces other than they were from a Rocky Top lettuce mix from Baker Creek Heirloom seeds.

Reddish tinged leaves of lettuce in the Rocky Top lettuce mix

 

Nice lettuce head

Spinach is great for eating raw, creamed spinach, or making cream of spinach soup with some skimmed cream from the cows.  Interspersed with the spinach is some cilantro that has come up volunteer.  Instead of weeding the cilantro out, I like to pull some and add to my scrambled eggs. 

Fresh spinach with some volunteer cilantro coming up in the row

 And finally a row of sugar snap peas.


Sugar snap peas blooming and climbing skyward

I enjoy the garden for many reasons.  Kinda neat to think about the fact that it all started in the Garden of Eden years ago.  Walking in the garden in the early morning or late afternoon is time well spent.