Jeremiah 29:5 “Build houses and live in them; and plant gardens and eat their produce.”
Debi’s Garden
Published by Debi
I live in Leesburg, Virginia where I teach high school students in the Agriculture Department. Additionaly, I am self-employed as a horticultural consultant and landscape designer. "Beefriend the Bees!" and "Neither Here Nor There" are children's books I wrote and illustrated available from Amazon (http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?url=search-alias=aps&field-keywords=Deborah Chaves&x=12&y=25. Other interests include singing and playing my guitar (also have a CD for sale on Amazon called "Gardening Therapy"); walking my American Bulldog, Cloud and Olde English Bulldogge, Sky; staying active in my local church, and blogging on the www.thedailylily.com. View more posts
thedailylily.com 
Beautiful garden Debi. I know you and Bob have worked hard to carve out a total yard garden in an urban setting. Congrats👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻 I am a customer of your many canned goods that come from your harvest and canning skills. Sure enjoy being a neighbor to you and Bob and enjoying your bounty. I know your adult children love the gifts of fresh market and canned goods from home👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
I am also a great fan of Bible gardens:
Q. Did you know there are four, very significant gardens in the Bible? Can you name them? 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
A. 1) Garden of Eden, 2) the Garden of Gethsemane, 3) the Garden of Golgotha, and 4) the Garden of God.
Each garden is said to be very distinct in of itself (like how your yard garden differs from a farm garden, yineyard etc) and yet each one describes our position with Christ.
Each garden also serves a particular role in God’s eternal plan for mankind.
The question is, in God’s eternal plan, which garden do we find ourselves in?
The more I write, research, read, pray, write I see I need to improve my gardens in skill and walks. Or, I might be outside the table of fellowship in my town.
My County, Loudoun, Va. has become a Vineyard-wine-wedding venue-gardens galore.
Debi, I see in the first photo a 3D yellow/black Bee 🐝 friend made by Chris M. Does it attract Bees?
Yes, if I understand what Chris told me the Bee house is especially designed so that its curvy shape of the Bee house is like the sound wave generated by flying bees. The bees like to have a rest sometimes so there are different size holes to accommodate different bees. I think they like yellow also…probably reminds them of pollen. I really need to have the bees come so they will pollinate the squash nearby…so hopefully they can rest from their labors in their bee house and then head out again to work!
Thank you, Sara. I am very grateful to have an urban garden and appreciate and look forward to what it will produce this season.
Your list of Bible gardens and your question, “which garden do we find ourselves in?” inspired me to go and review a chapter from your book, “Dressing for His Glory – On Pursuing Excellence”. The chapter is “Lesson 4; Image: The Garden of the Lord”. This is the garden I want to find myself in. I think your objective for the chapter provides a goal, challenge and incentive to dwell here.
“Objective: To Allow MY Life to be the “Garden of the Lord” by:
1. Allowing God to Cultivate My Life in a Protected Place
2. Understanding (7) Characteristics of Christ
3. Developing Divine Designs
4. Entering into the Garden of love
5. Being Beautiful
I love hearing about the bees and their duties to balance nature. I had a nice supply of local honey in my tea this am to try and help with the effects of pollen in this lush season.
Love the creative design of Bee house Chris M made for your garden. He wants an update on its effectiveness.
Gardens fascinate me? I see garden and a start singing, https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=aAjjNjB6G2k
I have coined the phrase from understudying my brother, Chet, and His garden through life and death, “A Garden is Eternal.” By Sara for Chet
As we know very well know it takes water for gardens…In the eighth century BCE a Jewish farmer named Amos spoke loudly against the rich who were manipulating credit to take land from small landowners. So, with God in control farms fell into disarray. Amos called for the rich to act on behalf of the poor.
Amos 4:7-8 “Furthermore, I withheld the rain from you While there were still three months until harvest Then I would send rain on one city And on another city I would not send rain; One part would be rained on, While the part not rained on would dry up. “So two or three cities would stagger to another city to drink water, But would not be satisfied; Yet you have not returned to Me,” declares the LORD.”
Vs 9 amp answers, “I smote you with blight [from the poisonous east wind] and with mildew; I laid waste the multitude of your gardens and your vineyards; your fig trees and your olive trees the palmerworm [a form of locust] devoured; yet you did not return to Me, says the Lord.” And Amos answers…
“But let justice roll on like a river,
righteousness like a never-failing stream!“ Amos 5:24 NIV
Lot more to this Jewsish farmer….
Tammy H was telling me her Church http://countrysidecc100.com was studying the book of Amos just last night. I was studying a potion from a study I was doing as we were talking about rivers as metaphors. But, we know full well Rivers are more than metaphors.
We sing, step into the River…the river is withinin us…River, river. But where is justice for the Poor?
Love the song link you shared above Sara.
And regarding the bee house effectiveness…I will be keeping a watch for bee activity and try to peek in the holes to see if any are resting. I think bees stay busy working in the day and rest in the evening.
After reading what you wrote from Amos and that chapter, he surely understood God’s Sovereignty and judgement in the earth and was his spokesman.
And to answer your question below, Sara, “Debi, did Chris participate in vegetable gardens while serving in Peace Corp in Africa?” My understanding is that he wanted to help start vegetable gardens when he got there but I don’t think it was successful due to lack of rain or source of water/irrigation in that area.
Debi, your garden is absolutely gorgeous! Thanks for sharing those beautiful pictures .🌿🌱🍅🌽🌶🍆
Thank you, Tammy. I had lots of help this year with the preparation, mulching and staking from Bob with assistance from son Chris so I could focus on planting. Now we hope for good results.
Debi, did Chris participate in vegetable gardens while serving in Peace Corp in Africa? I’v heard you say he had an interest in gRdening before. Great to have helpers on your team👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
From the looks of your pictures you may be well on your way to lots of beautiful fruit/vegetables🍅🍆🌽🌶🌿🍎😊🙃😍🙏
I love your garden Debi and the sculpting of the garden draws one’s eyes to it. Spiritually people are drawn to WHOM is in you – Jesus. The soil looks really rich. We know in Matthew 12 in the Bible that if seed lands in the good soil , it produces a crop- a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown. Yeah we can see a multiplication in the harvest in fruit physically and spiritually in bringing others to Christ due to rich soil, which enables the root system to be firmly founded so they can bring many souls to Jesus.
I enjoyed in my childhood working with my sisters and brother in a large farm garden in Virginia. Dad taught us how to plow the rows and how many seeds to plant in a single hole and what the difference was between a weed and a true plant. Also he would plant the corn next to a brooding house of baby chickens/turkeys. The reason he said that the corn loved the sound of the babies. (Many biblical lesson are found in the farmers garden.)
One thing I didn’t learn was how to water plants in a container garden. Chet who was a wonderful gardener told us to drill holes in the bottom of our containers so they wouldn’t rot.
My Dad solely depended on God watering his. No hose or carrying buckets of water.
Now I do container gardening. A friend and I noticed in our container garden that our squash, zucchini and tomatoes where suddenly displaying yellow leaves. Googling I found that it could be due to not watering enough. The artical went on to say just pick off the yellow leaves and it wouldn’t hurt the fruit and also water at the root and not the top as watering at top would cause the disease to destroy the whole plant . Oh my I was not to water at the top which I had been doing all the time and my friend had also done. Isn’t it interesting that if the root is healthy the whole plant will be healthy. Thus spiritually if our roots are watered by the living water of Jesus our roots will dig deep into the Word and we will produce and abundance of fruit. But if we only water our mind as to how we think it should be done with head knowledge about who Jesus is we are on our way to death unless like my friend we caught our mistake in time and the plant had a complete turn-a-round. Thank goodness we are now harvesting healthy fruits of the soil. Spiritually we may be on our way to distruction but when we stop depending on ourselves Jesus uses living water to bring healing to the root. Also make sure you repent of the sin in your lives displayed as yellow leaves and your fruit for the Lord will be healthy.
God always has us learn from all things around us. May our gardens grow in health from being firmly planted in His Word who gives us living water.
Thanks Rena for your comment about my garden and also for sharing your childhood farm garden experiences. Sounds like you had plenty of space to grow and that your Dad was a great farming teacher.
Also interesting how as our lives and space constraints change, that our gardening patterns do also. I am glad that you and your friend have been able to adjust your current container gardening techniques so that “we are now harvesting healthy fruits of the soil.”
Debi, we might have to share on the Lily canning recipes. I was asked tonight by one of your last year customers if they could buy a few jars of your hot 🌶🌶🌶🌶
Here is the recipe and website link we used for the Pickled Jalapeno Peppers
http://www.geniuskitchen.com/recipe/pickled-jalapeno-peppers-108201
• 2 quarts jalapeno peppers (or we used a combo of jalapenos and Big Chili’s)
• 2 cups white wine vinegar
• 2 cups water
• 1⁄2 teaspoon pickling salt or 1⁄2 teaspoon pickling spices (depends on your taste; we used some of each)
• 4 cloves garlic
• Slice peppers or leave them whole (we did both but to prevent bursting, cut two small slits in whole
peppers.)
• Pack peppers tightly into clean, hot jars.
• Combine vinegar and water; heat to a simmer. Do not boil.
• Pour hot vinegar over peppers, leaving 1/2 inch headspace.
• Add pickling salt and a clove of garlic to each jar then seal (I did this before pouring the vinegar solution)
• Process in boiling water bath for 10 minutes.(If you have never done this before you may want to read up
on how to)
Meet my three sisters…https://www.treehugger.com/lawn-garden/three-sisters-why-you-should-plant-corn-beans-and-squash-together.html