This is the first post in a series about planting, tending, and harvesting in the Serendipity Farmhouse (SFH) garden. As you may have noticed, the tagline for SFH Blog is: Pray, Prepare, Preserve. What do we mean by that and what does it have to do with vegetable gardening?
Through our years together, we have found those three actions to be essential to success in almost any venture. Rather than try to explain in great detail what we mean, we will illustrate through examples. This series of posts will show you how the actions of prayer, preparation, and preserving combine to bring an order and balance throughout the season – from planting to harvest.
Pray – A Patron Saint: We have chosen St. Isidore the Farmer as the patron of Serendipity Farmhouse. So, it is only natural to seek his help when it comes to planting in our vegetable garden. Here is a brief description of St. Isidore and his virtuous life.
St. Isidore, patron saint of farmers, was himself a farmer born in the city of Madrid, Spain, about the year 1110; His chief appeal is to those who, as he did, work the land. But his good qualities–whole-hearted trust in God, his enthusiasm and vigor in doing his job, his spirit of prayer and devotion to religious practice–these can profitably be admired and imitated by all laboring men, …
CatholicCulture.org: Catholic Prayer: Prayer to Saint Isidore the Farmer, Patron of Countrymen
Prepare – Ordering the Right Seeds: The best seeds for you or my next door neighbor
might not be the best for SFH. Rather than trying to sort out the claims of the many seed companies, we have taken a different approach. This year many of our seeds will be from Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello. Yes, that’s right, the historic gardens at Monticello are still in use and producing beautiful crops. Check it out here.
Our first batch of seed arrived on Tuesday. You can find out more about each type by clicking on them to see what Monticello says about them:
- Early Blood Turnip-rooted Beet Seeds (Beta vulgaris cv.)
- Georgia Southern Collards Seeds (Brassica oleracea cv.)
- Cow’s Horn Okra Seeds (Abelmoschus esculentus cv.)
- Refugee Bean Seeds (Phaseolus vulgaris cv.)
Preserve – Memories of the Vegetable Gardens at Monticello: Thomas Jefferson was 
fascinating in his curiosity about what could be grown in his own garden. As we look back on our pictures from those gardens we are inspired to experiment as he did. So, our resolution for this year is to study about the best methods and to put them into practice. As we move through planting, tending, and harvesting, we will record the results and share them with you. In a very real sense we will be preserving a Virginia tradition started at Monticello.
How can I get this to my brother in law, organic farmer and produce mastermind?
There are two ways. First, because you are an email follower, you can forward the email to your brother-in-law from your own email account. The second way is slightly more difficult. Go to the bottom of the post and click on the “Email” icon; insert your brother-in-law’s email address; then, insert the words shown in the RECAPT box; finally, click on “SEND EMAIL”