Monday, August 31, 2009

Vegetables!!

The Church is encouraging the members here to grow their own vegetables, if at all possible. The results would be significant for these folks. With incomes below $3000 per year (U.S.), growing their own vegetables would be a definite help with the family budget.

But they are not used to the concept here. The growing season is quite short and it has been assumed that some vegetables (i.e. tomatoes, peppers, etc.) could not be grown here, anyway. And there are other problems so not much effort as been made. But several have caught the vision as the Church as increased it’s encouragement and helped make available the means for them to do so by providing such things as seeds and a few other supplies.

Chinbaatar (whose family, you might remember, we accompanied to the Hong Kong temple to be sealed earlier this year – see older post) has really gone over the top! He not only grows most of the vegetables which his family eats, but is also making some decent money selling what he grows!

If you look closely at this first photo, you will not only see some really impressive looking cucumber plants, but you may also note that he has managed to build a nice little greenhouse to grow them in, thus elongating his growing season.

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And then there’s the cabbage! Those are some really nice looking plants!

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They insisted that we have a bit of dinner with them and much of what we ate was out of their garden. Also pictured are Elder and Sister Gibbons from Hong Kong who are visiting with Sister Caldwell and I. They are our area leaders.

And, of course, where there is food, the full time Elders seem to always just happen to drop in! This is Elder Snow and Elder Bigler. We think they look a lot alike!

Chinbaatar is doing a lot to encourage other members to grow vegetable gardens. Elder Caldwell is working with the youth in the Nalaikh branch to really push the branch members to start preparing ground now and making ready for next spring. It will be interesting to see how many jump on board next year!
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7 comments:

Angie said...

Nothing better then eating out of the garden! I am glad you were able to eat some of that good stuff:)

The Fendleys said...

I bet THAT food was very good to eat (unlike some other things you have tried)!! I bet you both could teach them all a little something about growing a garden, especially Dad. He has always had a pretty impressive garden. Is that watermelon that I see on one of the plates? Did they grow that themselves?

Ryan Cowley said...

Those are some pretty impressive cucumber plants, especially considering they probably don't have much "experience"!!

Mr C said...

Good eyes! There is watermelon there and it was delicious! But Chinbaatar did not grow it.

They do grow watermelon here but he has not tried that, yet. Maybe next year!

Bressler Bunch said...

Has he been able to grow tomatoes? That's my favorite part of a garden! His garden sure looks great.

Mr C said...

He has tomato plants, but they will not likely produce. Fall is already here and the leaves are turning colors in the mountains. He should have put some of those in his greenhouse. He is learning!

Jason said...

My garden should look so good!

I have a guy who works for me who extends his Utah growing season to almost 10 months with his greenhouse! (Of course, he probably uses equipment not found at the local Kwiki-mart in Mongolia.)