Monday, August 25, 2008

NOT QUITE YET



I know it's coming.  I can feel it in the air.  The cicadas are buzzing away and the nights are just a bit cooler than they were a week ago.  Fall's coming.  I love fall, but I'm not quite ready for summer to be over yet.  We had a nice summer here, except for the flooding in June.  Too much rain early on meant not as good of a crop of tomatoes as we are used to.  But still they are the best that the summer has to offer, in my opinion.  I do love growing them.  I grow them from seeds in my basement at the end of March and by May 15, I usually plant about 36 plants, sometimes more.  I grow them from seed so that I can plant heirloom varieties that you'd never be able to find at a nursery.  I grow varieties with old-fashioned sounding names like Brandywine, Black Krim, Purple Cherokee, and Mortgage Lifter.  I know, a lot of tomatoes for two people, but I love to give them away and put them up in jars like my Mom and Grandma did.  It makes me feel connected to both of them.  When my sisters and I were young and we would complain about all of the work of gardening and canning and freezing masses of corn, tomatoes, green beans, etc., my Mom would always say "It'll taste awfully good when the snow flies, girls!".  And you now, it still does.

1 comment:

Karen Elmquist said...

Oh Cris, the jars are so lovely! Something so satisfying to the mind and the eye in a row of glowing jars of sunshine put away for the cold dull days ahead.