Birthday Tomato

Ripe!

I ate one. I have been watching the one to the left in the photo for a week, as it ripened on my countertop. That was the one I wanted for my birthday meal on Sunday. Picking it on a foggy day, placing it carefully in the basket, and trying not to bump it - preventing bruising, I carried it off the island to wait. This tomato has patiently grown from a tiny seed in February last to a full grown fruit in September. Ready to leave the plant, now dead, and become a delicious meal for me. I ate it that night as my meal. I took a bite, sweet juice spilling out. It was as though I was tasting the months, days, and hours of time. The fruit had been watered, fertilized, warmed by the sun, protected by a straw bed. I enjoyed every moment of its growth.

Other blogs on gardening

I was searching for Maine blogs on gardening and I stumbled on these two great sites. They are full of resources, charts on growing status of plants, recipes and medicinal uses of plants - all local!! I'm sure there are many more....I don't have the time to read them all! Take a look, I learned this morning that comfrey  is my next plant.
http://brandismainegarden.blogspot.com
http://livingthefrugallife.blogspot.com

The Final Bouquet

As I cleaned up in my garden this weekend I found a few beautiful flowers left. Unlike other areas in Maine, we are blessed by one more month with no frost. The tomatoes have September to ripen, then I'll be wrapping them up in newspaper and placing them inside. The lilies will only live a day, the cosmos maybe another week. Hummingbirds are busy at the nasturtiums, soaking up all the nectar they can before taking off for a warmer climate. I love this time of year in my garden, everything is turning golden brown. There is a quiet peacefulness surrounding each and every plant, as they begin to die or just go to sleep.

Leaving the Garden Behind

This past weekend we had to move out of our island home to a home off island we rent for the school year. We've done this move now three years in a row. The first year was difficult for me and our two smaller children (grades 2,3 then). The older two were tickled - more friends, more things to do, more teachers, more athletic options, more music opportunities, the world was a richer place for them. Me? Well, I was in mourning. I missed our simple way of life on the island, I missed our friends (20 years worth), I missed my running routes, I missed  the other children.  Most of all, I missed my garden. I feel a familiar feeling of dread leaving it this week, but looking at the positive side, I brought lots of produce with me.  I know I can return, another weekend, or on a holiday (next one October ?).
I learned, slowly, that mourning takes time. I don't mean time like hours, I mean years. Everything looked negative to me when we left, it seemed so final. We were not part of the community anymore, other families wouldn't understand our reasons for moving, my younger children would never make friends like they had on the island, life would become too busy, there would be too much to do. The list got overwhelming. My savior was being invited to a local yoga class. I went faithfully each Tuesday night and learned a new way to breathe, to accept life as it was and to move on one day, one moment at a time. My garden will wait, tomatoes will ripen, the grass and weeds can grow while I am away from it. The cosmos and day lilies will continue to bloom, others walking by can enjoy them. It's alright. I know I can go back. That makes me smile.

How to Ripen Those Stubborn Tomatoes

I have ten tomato plants in my garden and they have only produced two weeks of tomatoes for salads and an occasional snack. Every year I say, "Forget the tomatoes, they will never ripen in time." My husband and I have tried planting them on the south side of the house in our cold frame spot, in special tomato planters out front, and now in a mini hoop house in the center of our larger garden. Every year we struggle with the wait. The other day at a school recess I was chatting with another woman about her tomatoes. She was raving about how delicious her heirloom crop was. I cringed with jealousy. She suggested I try to rip out the plants by their roots and hang them upside down to speed up ripening. Interesting, I thought. What analogies or metaphors can I think of in life? I think it is similar to the waiting game educators and parents need to play when trying to teach their children to read and write. Learning to read for some comes naturally, like a ripening tomato with the right amounts of fertilizer, water and warm sun. Others can take years, like one of my sons.  He struggles with a developmental delay which drastically slows down his ability to process everything. This delay envelopes his entire life. Words spoken get processed slowly, I always need to be clear and direct and simple with him. Writing and reading are very hard for him. He has a tremor in his writing hand and his letters are formed larger than normal.  Reading has been a slow process for him, requiring extra help in school with a specific phonics program and tons of review. He  spends many hours a day with the special ed. teacher and has a full time aide in the classroom.  I do expect that over a long period of time he will learn to read and write well.  Like my ripening tomatoes,  I need to be patient and wait.

Harvesting Beans

     Today I made 8 jars of dilly beans. I picked the beans, actually, I ripped the beans out of the ground completely. This was one of the last days of harvesting for me as my family begins the daily commute off-island to school tomorrow. This batch of beans will go in the back of the cupboard so we will know to eat it last (longer fermentation).  Making these beans today started back in May, when my husband first sowed them into the ground. I remember thinking, hmmmm I think it's a bit early for out here on the island to plant beans. The temperature of the soil isn't warm enough for them to have a fair start. Sure enough, in the next week or so when the seedlings of beans emerged, they got eaten by an enemy (slugs, beetle, ?). My husband then left the planting to me. The second time worked. It was early June and we had our first picking of beans in later July.
     Gardening is my solace.  It is the place I find peace. Today I was frustrated with the difficulties of setting up this blog. While I ripped at those beans I thought of how I would need to return to the computer later and give it another try. I did, and here is my first entry.
This little lesson of planting, knowing when to plant, studying the foes of that planting, watering that plant, adding fertilizer (mulching rows)  and waiting for the harvest is like teaching kids how to write in general.  To be a teacher of writing I think you need to know about the conditions surrounding that child, like the temperature of planting time. Is the child ready? Does the child have the proper tools (pencil, pen, paper or computer)?  Are they afraid of any foes of writing (criticism)? I also beleive they need lots of watering and fertilizing through words of encouragement and good examples to follow.
   I hope to use this space as a place of reflecting  this year as I start a graduate program in literacy and writing. Whether the ideas come out of my garden, out of my classroom of second graders, out of my family, or out of my class,  I will be recording them here.