Fresh from Wellspring Charitable Gardens - January 22, 2026

Fresh Today… Beets, Broccoli, Carrots, Celery, Delicata Squash, Kale, Turnips, Rutabagas, Lettuce, Parsley, Lemons & Oranges

Using your Produce… by Julie Moreno

Root vegetables like our carrots, beets, turnips, and rutabagas store energy in the form of starch. When temperatures drop, the plant senses stress and activates enzymes that start breaking those starches down into simple sugars, such as glucose and fructose. These sugars act like natural antifreeze, helping the plant resist freezing. As a result, the vegetables taste noticeably sweeter after exposure to cold or frost. Root vegetables are a staple of our winter baskets and all of them make an appearance this week, so what follows are two recipes for us to enjoy the seasonal harvest.

Maple Mustard

Roasted Root Vegetables

2 purple top turnips, peeled and diced

2 rutabagas, peeled, medium dice

½ onion, diced

1-2 tablespoons oil

1 teaspoon coarse salt

Fresh ground black pepper

2 tablespoons maple syrup

1 tablespoon whole grain mustard

1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar

* Preheat the oven to 425° F. Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper. Toss the turnips, rutabagas, and onions with the oil, salt and pepper. Roast for 20-30 minutes, tossing once during cooking. In a small bowl, mix the maple syrup, mustard and cider vinegar. Take the sheet pan out of the oven and pour the maple mixture over the vegetables. Stir the vegetables and return to the oven for 2-3 minutes to caramelize. Serve right away.

How Wellspring Counseling Helps the Hurting

Your subscription for WCG farm to family fresh produce benefits hurting people in our community. I spoke to a community leader who turned to Wellspring Counseling Ministries for help finding a therapist for a loved one.  He was discouraged by calls he had made to therapists who were not accepting new clients or ones who did not return his calls.  We hear that story too often. When he called us, we went to work.  Our mission and deepest desires are to return calls and provide real support within 24 hours.  We contact our network therapists to learn who is available, who takes the client’s insurance, and who has the specialized expertise to address the client’s specific needs.  We do this work on their behalf, so they do not experience the disappointment and futility of calling and not hearing from a real person with real compassion providing real support. It takes courage for the hurting to reach out for help.  When we answer a call and provide timely resources and appropriate referrals, we are fulfilling our call to connect hurting people to expert healers. Thank you for partnering with Wellspring Counseling Ministries to make these services available and fruitful.

“Why won’t you answer?”

Prepping in Advance…

To make eating vegetables as easy as possible, a little prep work is needed. This pickled beet recipe is perfect to have the veggies ready to eat in the fridge. While the beets are cooking, wash your lettuce, peel and chop carrot and celery sticks, and you’ll be ready for the week.

Pickled Beets

3-4 beets                            

¼ cup cider vinegar           

1 tbsp sugar                       

½ tsp Dijon mustard       

1 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil

½ tsp salt

¼ tsp black pepper

* Remove the greens from the beets, save for future use (see beet greens recipe). Scrub the beets free of any dirt. Rub the beets with olive oil and put them in a covered baking dish or wrap them in foil. Roast in a 400°F oven for about an hour or until they are easily pierced with a fork. Let them cool to the touch. Use your fingers to slip the peels off the beets. The peels should come off easily. Discard the peels. Quarter or slice the beets. Make the vinaigrette by combining the cider vinegar, sugar, olive oil, Dijon mustard, salt and pepper. Combine beets and vinaigrette in a bowl and allow to marinate for 30 minutes. Use right away or store in the refrigerator and enjoy chilled on salads or as a side dish.

Metaphors of Soil and Soil…

Zest for Life

Ronda May Melendez & Keith F Martin

Lemons are now ripe. A delicious rind surrounds the one resting in my left hand. My right raises and readies a zester to gently remove its outer layer. Circular blades draw slender strands from its smooth skin. Lemony oils mist forth, gather, and rise in a fragrant cloud. They reach, tickle, and then burn my nose. Long, thin threads fall in curls to the cutting board below. The zest is piquant, delicate, enticing. The slender strands add tang to the piccata I’m preparing, yet I am keenly aware that the lemon is being deconstructed at every pass of the sharp tool. Its offering in fragrance and flavor comes at great expense. The lemon will never be whole again, but the sacrifice is necessary.

So often we feel like a lemon in the hand of God.  He holds us securely, it is true, but He often allows the ragged rasps of others to penetrate beyond the delicate, fragrant outer flesh of our lives. Course instruments cut indelicately into the tender flesh of our hearts and minds, leaving pain in places where far more than our zest was removed. I ponder what my life produces when the rough rasp pierces and removes my pith along with my more desirable peel. Do I, like the lemon, still offer something fragrant and enticing, or does my pain, like pith, make the zest too pungent, even bitter? What delicate threads of insight, perspective, or understanding may have fallen untainted to the cutting board surface below? Will others find the zest fragrant and flavorful, despite the pain in the offering?  

I do hope so, even if my pungent oils burn a few noses and my pith is sour to the taste. I trust that the LORD holds me securely in His hand and allows my life to be zested, and at times rasped, for the benefit and well-being of others. May the LORD show them how to use the fragrant fallen strands to add tang and enticing flavor to their lives.

“But thanks be to God, who always leads us in triumph in Christ, and manifests through us the sweet aroma of the knowledge of Him in every place.”  2 Corinthians 2:14