Fresh from Wellspring Charitable Gardens - July 17, 2025

Fresh Today… Heirloom Slicing & Cherry Tomatoes, Green Onions, Eggplant, Assorted Summer Squash, Cucumbers, Carrots, Swiss Chard, Bell Peppers, Red or Yellow Onions, Green Beans, Cilantro, Basil, Melons & Apples

Using your Produce… by Julie Moreno

This week’s recipe turns salsa into a salad. I used sweet corn to bulk up the salad, but you could substitute the corn for beans or a cooked grain. This refreshing and colorful dish highlights the best of our summer produce. Chopped basil adds a fragrant, herbal note, while a simple dressing of olive oil and lemon juice, ties everything together with a bright, tangy finish. The salad benefits from resting for 15–20 minutes before serving, allowing the flavors to meld. It’s a perfect side dish for picnics, barbecues, or light meals.

Tomato-Corn Salad

2-3 ears of corn, kernels removed

        from the cob

2 large tomatoes, diced

2-3 green onions, sliced

2-3 sweet and/or hot peppers,

        finely diced

3-4 tablespoons basil,

        coarsely chopped

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 tablespoon lemon juice or

    white wine/apple cider vinegar

½ teaspoon salt

½ teaspoon fresh ground

      black pepper

* Combine all ingredients and let sit for 15-20 minutes before serving, if possible.

Cranky Chickens - Fewer Eggs!

The chickens are hot and bothered, so they’re not laying consistently! They have not succumbed to PAD - Poultry Affective Disorder, but to SAD - Summer Annoyance Disorder. The outcome is the same, though – Nothing. PAD symptoms appear in late fall and persist through the colder, darker winter months. Treatment for a PAD stricken chicken requires phototherapy or psychotherapy. We provide both phototherapy - a light in the darkness - and psychotherapy - a professional in the field who’s available 24/7, though she gets quite annoyed doing cognitive therapy with chickens (Bird brains, you know!) And she dislikes treating chickens, given her professional expertise and superb training.

SAD requires only play therapy, well…, and a pool with cool water and an ESH. The Emotional Support Human plays the lifeguard. Thankfully, we have a trained ESH available 24/7, though she despises suiting up and wearing a whistle while on duty. And she refuses to do mouth-to-mouth should the need arise. She disdains the very idea, given her expertise and training.

If the heat and the need for therapy do continue, the WCG therapist and ESH may get MAD! Mad is no disorder, but the natural outcome of 24/7 exposure to annoyance, needy chickens, and foul humor!

Eggplant Dip…

Baba Ghanoush is a dip made from eggplant, tahini, lemon juice, and garlic. It takes advantage of the soft and creamy texture of the cooked eggplant. Serve it with vegetable sticks or pita chips as snack or appetizer.

Baba Ghanoush

1 large or 2 medium eggplant      

2 tablespoons tahini                             

1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice    

1 garlic clove, minced                       

1 tablespoon extra-virgin

olive oil, more for serving

½ teaspoon salt 

Pinch of cayenne pepper

* Preheat the oven to 400°F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Cut the eggplants in half, lengthwise and cook them, cut side down, on the baking sheet, in the oven, until soft, about 35-45 minutes. When you press your finger on the eggplant skin it should collapse. Let cool and then scoop out the flesh. Chop the eggplant coarsely with a knife and place the flesh in a large bowl. Stir in the tahini, lemon juice, olive oil, garlic, salt and cayenne, mixing well. Serve with pita chips or toasted bread.

Metaphors of Soil and Soul…

Preparing for the Next Season

Cindi J Martin, LCSW

What surprised me most about growing seasonal vegetables year-round is how far in advance farmers must prepare for the coming growing season.  I often hear others say how discouraged they were with the produce from their winter garden, so they gave up winter gardening.  Their laments remind me of my first failed attempts at planting broccoli and cauliflower – both cool weather crops.  I had planted too late in the season, so as warm weather arrived, they were overrun by pests, failed to develop fully, and flowered before I ever had a chance to enjoy them.  Just recently, our resident Master Gardener, Anna Hazen, planted out the seed trays in our shade cloth area. Here we are in the stifling summer heat enjoying refreshing cucumbers, tomatoes, and melons, and she is already tending to broccoli and cauliflower seedlings that will fill the fields and provide the fall and winter harvests.

Forward thinking and disciplined preparation are the keystones to successful seasonal harvests.  Are you now thinking about your next season of life?  What fruit would you like to reap in that season? If you are a senior in high school, are you thinking about and developing the skills and mindset you will need for a successful career or satisfying marriage?  If you are a mom, have you thought about preparing for the empty nest and the extra time you will soon have?  For those still toiling through your employment years, are you planning how to fulfill the dreams you’ve deferred until retirement?  For those of us who are seasoned adults, have we considered and set in place care arrangements that will allow us to stay in our homes or take care of loved ones during the sunset of their and our lives?  

Yes, excessive or compulsive planning for tomorrow can drain us of energy needed for living today, but denial or avoidance of planning today will deprive us of resources needed for tomorrow. We are most productive and fruitful when we find that disciplined balance between living in the present and preparing for the future. Planning and planting ahead for the coming seasons make all the difference in what you will harvest.

      All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful;

        yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the

                peaceful fruit of righteousness.   Romans 12:11 (NASB)