“a time to plant, a time to pluck up what is planted”
I had hoped to become a better gardener in retirement. Alas, this has not been the case. I have only been able to keep alive the pansies in the front porch flower boxes and 6 spindly cherry tomato plants. I do love picking the tomatoes and popping them in my mouth. They are tiny but they burst with flavor.
I certainly didn’t get my grandmother’s green thumb. She had over an acre of garden vegetables on their farm. She canned much of it for the winter months. I loved going down into her root cellar. It was a damp, dark place that you got to thru a trap door in the floor of their bedroom closet. You carefully make your way down the wooden stairs. After your eyes adjusted to the light, then you saw the rows of jars, filled with colors and flavor all lining the shelves that stood against the dirt walls. There were jars after jars of tomatoes, beets, pickles, beans, corn and even meat.
One of the best meals my grandmother served this time of year included tomatoes picked fresh. She would set a plate of thick sliced tomatoes in the middle of the table. I now know why they called them beefy tomatoes. She served them with sweet corn and bread, both covered with butter. To me it was the best meal ever, and her bread was always homemade. As a kid, I loved to help her punch down the dough when it was time.
It was only when I was a teenager that I realized how hard it was for her to punch down the bread as she didn’t have full use of her left arm. My grandmother had been injured at birth, and yet it never really stopped her. According to my mom, my grandmother’s one concession to her injury was that once a week she got her hair done. She couldn’t put curlers in. She couldn’t tie up the tendrils of her hair, but she could tend the beans, de-tassel the corn and so much more.
My grandmother worked unbelievably hard and you could taste the love she put into her gardens. Remembering her as I picked my small tomatoes also got me thinking about the Greg Brown song, “Canned”. Brown wrote,
Peaches on the shelf
Potatoes in the bin
Supper’s ready, everybody come on in, now
Taste a little of the summer
Taste a little of the summer
Taste a little of the summer
My grandma put it all in jars
Let those December winds bellow and blow
I’m as warm as a July tomato
Maybe next Summer my garden will be bigger. For now, I’m having sweet corn and cherry tomatoes for supper.
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