Summer News
Mid-season update on what's growing & going on at Garden in Delight
Dear Gardeners,
A big summer hello from our garden to yours! We have been enjoying a relaxed, Sabbath pace and a season full of family games and special visits this summer. How about you?
Last weekend’s estate sale find, a vintage watering can, inspired a photo-vignette for chapter 8 of My Father is the Gardener — Watering & Hyssop. The soft green leaves and snowy white flowers of this beloved Biblical herb wash us in the spiritual reality of our Father’s forgiveness (Psalm 51:7), won for us by His Son (Acts 13:38), a precious pause and praise in morning watering and summer garden care.
Let this image also inspire us to pour out prayers as we tend and care for our gardens. I’m sure this is your practice, dear gardeners, so I’m encouraging you to carry on. It is in our power, moved by the Holy Spirit, to cultivate God’s Presence as we work the land—imagine! Our handiwork infused with praises and ponderings, humming hymns of God’s Word, helps prepare the land for angel harvesters (Matthew 13:39). Our garden prayers in this hour are instrumental, hallelujah!
Have I mentioned that I’ve become completely sold-out to baking sourdough bread? Funny thing: ever since my neighbor Michelle shared her starter with me, and the challenging pleasure of baking weekly loaves became my delicious obsession, I have found social media a bit more distasteful. Just passing this along in case you’re looking for a break, too.
I will be headed to Michigan at the end of the month for the GardenComm Annual Conference. I always look forward to gathering with the green industry’s greatest writers and being in the garden flow of God’s creativity. Watch for a full report next month in the Garden in Delight Devotions Blog—a special surprise awaits faith gardeners that I can’t wait to reveal!
Enjoy snapshots and Scriptures to follow as you stay well-watered in the lingering days of summer. Thank you for continuing to follow Garden in Delight!
Sincerely,
Shelley S. Cramm
author & gardener
I will always show you where to go. I’ll give you a full life in the emptiest of places—firm muscles, strong bones. You’ll be like a well-watered garden, a gurgling spring that never runs dry. Isaiah 58:11 The Message
From the Homeland
Field Trip to Bonton Farms, Dallas, Texas
Have you stood in any miracles this summer? My daughters and I took a field trip to Bonton Farms in south Dallas, one of Texas’ best mustard seed stories (Matthew 17:20). Founders of the farm have transformed this food desert into a flourishing garden and community with the gospel of Jesus. They have worked in spiritual strength to bring healing and restoration to the neighborhood along with fresh vegetables, fruits, bees, chickens, and goats! The cultivating work here supplies a weekly stall at Dallas Farmers Market, and a newly opened corner café and coffee shop. What began as seed-small trust in the Lord has grown to become a thriving enterprise, sheltering a neighborhood in God’s grace and redemption, spreading further to bless the surrounding city and suburbs (Luke 13:19).
We roamed through end-of-season greens, enduring summer intensity with the help of shade cloth; herbs flowered everywhere, which certainly made the Bonton bees happy! We even spied a fig tree, fruitful among the compost piles and farm tools. Read more about the miraculous testimony of this place:
From the Nightstand
Deeper reading for summer days
Try this pair of books on tending vines and baking bread to intensify your experience with communion:
An Unlikely Vineyard by Chelsea Greene (a meticulous read by a gritty American grape-grower, but we always have something to learn about Jesus from the testimony of a vinedresser)
Let It Rise by Mary Jo Pierce (a well-kneaded (needed?) servant’s story, with the persevering wisdom of a baker prayer-warrior and fellow Texan)
Pair with these earthy testimonies and prayer practices:
Hillbilly Elegy by J.D. Vance (a deep, dark faith memoir of overcoming addictions and fatherlessness)
Draw the Circle by Mark Batterson (a proverbial 40-day prayer focus, graced with gorgeous witness-insight like this: “We want things to happen at the speed of light instead of the speed of a seed planted in the ground, but almost all spiritual realities in scripture are described in agricultural terms.” So tasty!)
Breath as Prayer by Jennifer Tucker (a gently excellent guide to turning sleeplessness and anxiety into communion with the Lord…where our book stack began!)
Find more in-depth book discussions in Devotions Blog Book Reviews at Garden in Delight
From the Garden
Grow Gladiolus murielae ‘Muriela’ in honor of Song of Songs 2:1
What a joy to watch these gladiolus blooms brighten a summer garden! Ordered from Brent and Becky’s Bulbs after writing about spikenard substitutes in Fragrance Everywhere in The Bride’s Garden, Gladiolus murielae ‘Muriela’ have stood gloriously, beaming in all that summer has brought us—some cool mornings, some searing sunshine. I haven’t noticed them to be very fragrant, nor have they produced a massive clump of blooms like their promotional picture shows, yet ‘Muriela,’ named for the one of the first species’ collector’s wife Muriel, has infused my heart with the essence of their mention in Scripture.
As you may recall, Biblical botanist Dr. Lytton Musselman, author of Figs, Dates, Laurel, and Myrrh, favors Gladiolus italicus, a sister species, as the “rose of Sharon;” he has watched them growing wildly among the cultivated fields in the coastal Sharon region of Israel. In God’s Word, the lover swoons to his beloved that she stands out to him in singular beauty among all that surrounds her.
Likewise, my ‘Muriela’ have bloomed one at a time, each flower a bright star for a day or two, soon to be succeeded a day or two later by a hidden bud on the same stalk or another plant close by. A one-by-one, gentle and inviting garden flower, from which I have sensed the singular attention of the Lord, returning my mind and meditation to the Song of Songs experience. I highly recommend these flowers for letting your garden minister to you.
Discover more about planting a Song of Songs garden in the Garden in Delight blog series:
Blurbs & Praises
Featured in Washington Gardener Magazine July 2024
enjoy a special article on “Museum of the Bible Rooftop Garden,” featuring my book signing for My Father is the Gardener - flip to page 14
Refresh with a Poem
wake up to God’s miraculous possibility stories with M is for Mustard, in rhyme and meter from the A-to-Z Primer of Plants in God’s Word
We Won!
My Father is the Gardener is the 2024 People's Choice Horti Awards Best Book, hallelujah!! Many thanks to all of you who voted, and all of you who have passed along the book to a gardening friend.
Summer Prayer
Dear Lord, thank you for the season of summer! Though the world seems to constantly serve up troubles and chaos, You answer with lush growth, bountiful produce, blooming herbs, and a rainstorm to two! Thank you for your consistent reminder in Your gardening Words that You know this earth—from lowly hyssop to mustard seed possibilities—and You love Your creation. You are near (Deuteronomy 4:7). Thank you for the fantastic reality that each of us is Your singular focus and help me to live out this truth in deeper trust and conversation with You. I pour out my heart to You, O Lord! Thank You that I can work with You to make the barren places beautiful in my home and family, neighborhood or community as You show me where to go (Isaiah 58:11). In Jesus’ Name we pray, Amen.