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2024 September-Preparedness and Winter Garden Ideas
Hello Gilbert Stake!
Welcome to September! 2024 is going fast and it’s time to consider what to do with your garden. At this point there are a couple of options; you can winterize it and wait for spring, or you can prepare for the wonderful cooler weather veggies.
If you choose to not have a garden in the winter, here are some things you can do to have the garden bed ready for next year.
How to Winterize Your Vegetable Garden
- Harvest any remaining crops.
- Compost for best results.
- Add nutrients.
- Take notes to get ready for next year.
If you choose to keep your garden going, this is a great time to plant lettuces and cabbage family plants. Of course, if you can protect your plants you can keep many of the summerish vegetables all winter.
Here is a link for the planting guide for Maricopa County:
Vegetable Planting Calendar for Maricopa County (arizona.edu)
The Principle of Preparation
Here’s some thoughts on preparedness from our church leaders:
Members of the Church have been counseled for many years to be prepared for adversity. Preparation, both spiritual and temporal, can dispel fear.
Elder L. Tom Perry taught, “The need for preparation is abundantly clear. The great blessing of being prepared gives us freedom from fear.”
With the guidance of Church leaders, individuals and families should prepare to be self-reliant in times of personal and widespread tragedy.
As members of the Church, we know that it is our responsibility to provide for ourselves and our families both in good times and in bad. Part of fulfilling that obligation is making preparations now to face whatever challenges may come our way.
President Spencer W. Kimball taught that we must be “anxiously engaged in a positive program of preparation.” It is not enough to hope for the best; we must prepare for it.
He explained, “The Lord will not translate one’s good hopes and desires and intentions into works. Each of us must do that for himself.”
Emergency Preparedness (churchofjesuschrist.org)
To help in your quest to follow the Prophets council, here are suggestions to help build your storage in September:
Week 1: Vegetable Week! Green beans, corn, carrots, mushrooms. Can, freeze, dehydrate or buy!
Week 2: Get those peas, legumes, dried potatoes, and dried onions. Try dehydrating your own.
Week 3: Medical supplies: aspirin, Tylenol, Pepto Bismol, Vicks. Whatever your family needs. Get children’s medicines too.
Week 4: Iodized salt. It seasons, it preserves, it’s a toothpaste, and a de-icer! You never have too much.
AND… since we missed last month, here is the list for August:
Week 1: Back to school sales! Paper, pencils, crayons, envelopes, stamps, journals.
Week 2: Baking powder, baking soda, corn starch, vanilla, bouillon cubes, cooking spray, yeast.
Week 3: Tomato Week! Salsa, juice, sauce, whole, chopped, paste, pizza and spaghetti sauce.
Week 4: Do some fruit canning or drying. If not…then buy it! Watch for sales!
May the Lord bless you in your endeavors to live providently. Need help with any or all of these topics, no problem. Just reach out to your ward’s Preparedness Specialist. If you ward does not have a specialist, contact your ward Elders Quorum President and/or your Relief society President.