Palette of Tomatoes

A favorite gardening project, growing tomatoes has taken wings the last couple of years.  Not only are we growing more tomatoes, but most of them are heirloom varieties.  I am intrigued with being part of  sharing history and story.  Heirloom vegetables are grown from seeds passed down by many generations in a family and shared.  Last year, our family voted one heirloom our all time favorite.  It is one of the very first known "black", or deep dusky rose colored tomatoes, and is called Cherokee Purple. It was named in 1990 by. Craig LeHoullier  , who received seeds of an unnamed cultivar in the mail from J. D. Green of Tennessee. Mr. Green indicated that the "purple" tomato  was given by the Cherokee Indians to his neighbor "100 years ago".

We love the color and taste of this tomato, and enjoy thinking about others who have liked it enough for over 100 years to share it with others and save the seeds.  We have at least 2 dozen tomato plants.  Some of the other heirlooms are named Black Plum, Brown Berry, and Purple Russian.  Did I hear you say you thought tomatoes were red?

Invitation

I read in home and garden magazines about creating different spaces in the garden that are like different rooms.  Our garden has a variety of plants and paths that lead to herbs and vegetables, roses and fruit trees, flowers and vines.  Then there are what we call our "sitting spots".  A small table and chair, benches, stone walls, and tucked into the shady background here, child size chairs with cushions for the little girls who call us Papa Joe and Granmary...our invitation to come sit awhile.  There is so much rushing about and working to mark the next thing off a list.  The sitting spots call us to just be, doing nothing but breathing a prayer of gratitude for garden beauty.

In Love with Lavender

 Spring cleaning has not happened yet inside my home, but we have been hard at work Spring Cleaning the garden.  Pruning, wood-chipping, composting, tilling, mulching, cleaning out all the debris left in winter's wake and making room for new growth has resulted in sore knees, aching backs and glad welcome for the return of a palette of greens and rainbow colors.  As we put in fresh herbs, we picked plants for flavor, color and fragrance.  I learn more and more about herbs, and use them many more places than my kitchen herb bed.  We plant several different kinds of lavender for foliage and fragrance, as well as their lovely stalks of bloom.  There is English, Spanish, and French lavender, Godwin's Creek lavender, and Fern-leaf lavender.  I have a number of recipes which use lavender. We use it to make potpourri, and have made salves and tea.  Our few plants bring us joy, but on my list for "someday" is a visit to the lavender farms in the Texas Hill country.  If you are traveling near there in the next few months, be sure to visit and tell me all about it.  The Unlikely Lavender Queen:  A Memoir of Unexpected Blossoming, would be perfect reading for your trip!
                                                
                                                 http://www.blancolavenderfest.com/

Texas Bluebonnets

One of the most beloved gifts the month of March brings to Texans is the lavish spread of bluebonnets along the sides of highways and neighborhood roads. As historian Jack Maguire so aptly wrote, "It's not only the state flower but also a kind of floral trademark almost as well known to outsiders as cowboy boots and the Stetson hat." He goes on to affirm that "The bluebonnet is to Texas what the shamrock is to Ireland, the cherry blossom to Japan, the lily to France, the rose to England and the tulip to Holland."

Although seeds have been taken to grow in other places, the two predominant species of bluebonnets are found growing naturally only in Texas and at no other location in the world. When I was growing up in East Texas, we watched for the first bluebonnets, usually accompanied by other Texas wildflower color, especially the complimenting colors of Indian Paintbrush and Crimson Clover.

I don't have a Stetson, can't ride a horse, and cowboy boots make my feet hurt. But I am glad to be a Texan, and love bluebonnets as much as the lady bugs on these I photographed just down the road.

In Gratitude

March 25, 2011: The redbuds are blooming, and I am remembering a grandmother's birthday. She has been physically gone from me for 34 years, but she is part of me and will always live in my heart and in the way I live my life. Mary Clyde Curley Terrell was born on this date in 1887 and lived until just weeks short of her 90th birthday. She loved me lavishly, taught me much of what I know about taking care of home and family, the gifts of hospitality and gardening. Her faith in God never waivered, throughout years of growing sons and a daughter (my mother), during which she endured the tragic death of her first son at age 13, loosing home and household to a fire, working ceaselessly as a farmer's wife to "make do". She never drove a car, did not have indoor plumbing until she had to move from her home to a small apartment when she was in her 80's. But she knew how to spread her table with a white cloth and gather flowers in a jar and make fried chicken Sunday dinners for her preacher and our family. She made patchwork and crazy quilts from clothing scraps that are still kept and passed on. She knew how to give a skinny litle girl good night kisses and tuck her into a feather bed. She made tea cakes and cornbread and chow chow. Near the end of her life on earth, sharing a room in a small nursing home, she saved her morning snack cookies and wrapped them in a napkin so she would have something to offer me when I came to see her. I saw the face of God in her face and felt His hands in hers. Thank you, Grandma. I am your namesake. You do live on, not just in me and in my sons, but in their children. I see the Redbud trees and greet another Spring, a precious reminder of ongoing life.

Grace Upon Grace

When family and friends gather in our home for a meal, we hold hands and say grace. My earliest memories include my Daddy’s quickly murmured prayer of thanks. My grandfather could hardly be understood the words ran together so fast. I cannot remember the exact words used, but I remember their bowed heads and their humility, and their gratitude for simple food. I do remember the words were the same every time, spoken with a cadence I did not hear in their voices at other times. Through all the years of my own marriage and family, in many different places and situations, that early example and teaching prompted gratitude and recognition of God’s presence at our table. I am grateful for those early influences. When I have cooked a meal for two or twenty, I love that moment when the work stops, hands reach out, blessing is asked on people and the food we share. It feels right to express our connections to God and each other in this way.
G.K.Chesterton reminds me that all the things on my list for today may be marked for significance in the same way.

"You say grace before meals. All right. But I say grace before the concert and the opera, and grace before the play and pantomime, and grace before I open a book, and grace before sketching, painting, swimming, fencing, boxing, walking, playing, dancing and grace before I dip the pen in the ink."
- G. K. Chesterton

So, thank you,God... for these plants and the earth in which I place them. Thank you for the book I read and the person who wrote it. Bless the person who will use these towels I am folding. Bless these words as I write them. For these and all your bounty, I give thanks. Be present at our table, Lord. Be here and everywhere adored.

Fragrance

“One should garden for the nose, for the eyes will take care of themselves.”
Robert Lewis Stevenson

So soon after pruning, some of our antique roses are loaded with buds and blooms. The first blooms surprised me, almost as if saying "Fooled you!" Commonly called Butterfly Roses, Mutabulis rose bushes leap high and wide and announce that they are back. These single petal roses change in hue as the bud opens, so that at any time there are usually pink, yellow, dusky rose, and apricot blooming at the same time like a swarm of butterflies covering the bush. Like all old roses (antique, or "found") they have a distinctive but unique fragrance that I can identify with my eyes closed. Breathe!