The gardens are all planted! Some are reaping the harvest, and others who got a late start in the planting are getting a few things each week. At the beginning of the season, it was extremely hot for several days, then the downpours of rain began. The rain helped all the gardens that were planted.

On June 18th, a tornado came through our small town,  and we had quite a lot of damage. One house was a total loss, and several roofs were blown off businesses.  I checked on my Gardeners and they were okay with just some minor damages to their gardens, mostly corn stalks blown over.

Everyone has one plant in the ground and as soon as their peas are gone, most will plant another crop of beans and usually put corn or something else in that spot.

I had one gardener last year clean his garden and put fertilizer on it after everything was gone.  He told Buck and me he had just a few bean seeds in a small bag and he thought no need to waste, so he took the seed and just threw them on his garden.   This man got six bushel of beans out of his garden with just a few bean seeds.

Most of the Gardeners who planted peas had exceptionally good crops, then a few did not do so well, but they also got to plant their peas when it was cold and lot earlier than some did.

We do have several younger people in our organization, and new people this year.  They are eager to learn, and they ask a lot of questions.  The main thing most wants to learn is canning. We had a demo-canning workshop on May 26, hosted by Dana Wright from the WVU Ext. Office.  We had twenty new gardeners to attend. She showed slides, gave out literature, and answered a lot of questions.

On July 7th, Dana Wright had a workshop for us, and we made twenty-pints of strawberry jelly.  We had sixteen in attendance that day and they learned what a hard job it is to do a lot of canning.

Our year is going well, everyone is doing hard work to raise food for their family, because of the high food prices.

Several Pictures are attached below.