Fresh from Wellspring Charitable Gardens - October 1, 2026

Fresh Today… Summer Squash, Popcorn, Carrots, Eggplant, Cucumbers, Green Beans, Sweet Peppers, Garlic, Shallots, Rosemary, Basil, Chives, Decorative Flowers, Fuyu Persimmons & Melons

Using your Produce… by Chef Julie Moreno

Even though the calendar says autumn, we still have summer vegetables ready to harvest. I have one more summer squash recipe for you. I picked this up from Cook’s Illustrated, one of my favorite publications for quality recipes. This pasta dish takes advantage of the softness of cooked summer squash, turning it into a creamy pasta sauce. Make sure that the pasta has a bite to it when you take it out of the pasta water, it will absorb more moisture from the squash and the reserved pasta water.

Spaghetti with Zucchini

adapted from Cook’s Illustrated

2 pounds summer squash, sliced thin

1 tsp salt, plus salt for cooking pasta

2 Tbsp olive oil

12 ounces pasta

2 Tbsp butter

2 Tbsp chopped basil

½ tsp fresh ground black pepper

½ cup shredded cheese, like

      provolone or Monterey jack

½ cup grated Parmesan cheese

* In a large microwave safe bowl, combine the summer squash slices and 1 teaspoon salt and ¼ cup water. Cover and cook until the squash is soft, about 10 minutes in the microwave stirring halfway through. While the squash is cooking cook the pasta in salted boiling water until al-dente. Reserve 1 and ½ cups of pasta water then drain the pasta from the remaining water. Remove the squash from the bowl and drain for about 5 minutes. In a large non-stick 12-inch sauté pan, heat the olive oil until shimmering. Add the squash and sauté for 12 minutes, stirring only about every 4 minutes so that the squash browns slightly. When the squash is very soft, dd 1 cup of the reserved water, the pasta, butter, basil and pepper. Over medium-low heat toss until the water is halfway absorbed 2-3 minutes. Then turn off the heat and stir in the cheeses until melted. Enjoy right away.

Decorate for Fall

Fall begins a seasonal frenzy of decorating for harvest festivals, family feasts, and holiday celebrations. To help you create the perfect celebration ambience, we are offering WCG corn stalks and colorful pumpkins. Text orders to Cindi at 209-607-1887 or Keith at 209-607-1876. We’ll set you up to celebrate!

Pricing of Fall Decorations:

   Bundle of 7 decorative corn stalks

without popcorn ears - $7.00

   Bundle of 7 decorative corn stalks

with edible popcorn ears  -  $20.00

   Sweet Sugar Pie Pumpkins - $1.50 each

   Small White Decorative Pumpkins - $2.00 each

   Small Orange Decorative Pumpkins - $1.00 each

   Large Green Decorative Pumpkins, Jarrahdale - $0.60 per lb.

   Large Orange decorative Pumpkins - $0.40 per lb.

Popcorn without a Microwave…

* Remove the popcorn from the cob by pushing each kernel with your thumb. It helps to do this over a pan or large bowl, because some of them will fly off. I like to do pick one row and then push the next row into the empty space.

Two ears should yield about 1/3 cup. In a large heavy bottomed pan with a lid, add 2-3 tablespoons of high temperature oil, such as peanut oil, palm oil, coconut oil or grape seed oil and the kernels. Heat the pan up over high heat, wait for the first kernels to pop then shake the pan. Continue to cook and shake every few seconds until the popping has slowed down, to one pop every 2-3 seconds. Turn off the heat, and if using an electric stove, remove the pan from the burner. Turn the popcorn out into a large bowl. Season with salt and melted butter if desired.

Metaphors of Soil and Soul… 

Barren Spaces

Ronda May Melendez & Keith F Martin

             “Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no

grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails and

the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep

in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, yet I will rejoice

in the Lord, I will be joyful in God my Savior.”   

Habakkuk 3:17-19

Despite a milder summer, the garden has been abundantly fruitful, and for that we are abundantly grateful. This week, though, my thoughts are drawn toward the empty rows. Spent bean and tomato vines were cleared, leaving barren brown spaces in places once flourishing with verdant vines once. While grateful for the summer harvests, these unplanted beds held my attention. Normally, I am anxiously concerned about the future of forlorn fields needing replanting. This fall, though, my heart has settled into a different attitude toward the barren spaces. I feel a tangible hope embedded in a palpable promise.

At first glance, barren garden spaces seem desperately void, but really, they aren’t. They teem with life beneath the soil’s surface. Hidden in the dark below, a host of active organisms comingle with organic matter, nutrients, air, and moisture to stimulate fertile seeds and fuel their growth.  Barren spaces are places in waiting, spaces prepared for a life-restoring encounter. Here seed and soil meet, join, and work together for life. Seed and soil need one another, but they have not yet met, so we wait expectantly for the encounter and the coming fruitful harvest.

Unseen elements are at work in spaces that seem lifeless; they remain unseen until the life from above joins the life from below. As it is with seed and soil, so it is with the Spirit of the God: “…He is not far from each one of us; for in Him we live and move and have our being…” Life is reborn when we welcome the LORD into the barren spaces of the heart. Despite our barrenness, His purposes are never thwarted, His promises never void. Let us wait in hope for the rebirth of life that brings eternal life and an abundant harvest of joy. Meantime, like the prophet Habakkuk, let us rejoice in God our Savior Whose hope-filled Word never returns empty.

“For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven,

And do not return there without watering the earth,

Making it produce and sprout,

And providing seed to the sower and bread to the eater, 

So will My word be which goes out of My mouth.

It will not return to Me empty,

Without accomplishing what I desire, 

Without succeeding in that for which I sent it.”  

Isaiah 55:10-11