It’s odd this time of year we are having temperatures in the 40s. Several of the garden participants have talked about how their garden are now slowing down and some even dying out. I don’t think this year has been as productive as last year. The struggles are the heat, rain, and now the cooler Temps that we are not use to.  The weather person says the sunshine is coming back in a couple of days lets hope it gets these plant to wake up and start producing more. Greg our volunteer wanted to write a little story for the blog this month. As follow here is his story.

Like my pappy used to say: “’You have to be careful if you don’t know where you’re going, because you might not get there”’. If I knew years ago that my destiny was going to take me to a land of tomato and pepper plants, perhaps I might not have been too excited at the time, but now it is my life! It’s what I do! I’m a volunteer at a non-profit mission In eastern Kentucky. I maintain a 48’ x 16’ High Tunnel. This year, I had over 28 tomato plants. The staff at the mission only know me as “Mater Man”. Earlier in the summer I was diagnosed with clinical “Mater-madness”. Apparently, I can’t help myself. Anyway, it has been a violent summer. I probably massacred hundreds of Japanese Beetles (they attacked my Hazelnut bushes … “Remember Pearl Harbor”). Certain wasps have helped me out but I am personally responsible for the death of least a half dozen horn-worms. And aphids…, shoot, you can kill hundreds of them with a single swipe of the thumb. If ya listen real close, you can hear the screaming’. OK. That does sound a little sick. I really can’t hear the screams of hundreds of aphids dying in rapid sequence. But I digress.

The point I would like to make is that growing, harvesting, and finally, eating your own home-grown food feeds the soul. A lot of the food we buy at the grocery store is so over-processed, nutritionally speaking, you’re better off eating the cardboard box it came in. Growing your own food connects you to the earth, and the rain, and the sky. It connects you to a bond with nature that our Appalachian ancestors knew only too well. Whether you have a good or bad crop this year probably remains to be seen. But the spiritual blessings will remain. Enjoy.