Tomato Garden Quotes

No writing is wasted. Did you know that sourdough from San Francisco is leavened partly by a bacteria called lactobacillus sanfrancisensis? It is native to the soil there, and does not do well elsewhere. But any kitchen can become an ecosystem. If you bake a lot, your kitchen will become a happy home to wild yeasts, and all your bread will taste better. Even a failed loaf is not wasted. Likewise, cheese makers wash the dairy floor with whey. Tomato gardeners compost with rotten tomatoes. No writing is wasted: the words you can't put in your book can wash the floor, live in the soil, lurk around in the air. They will make the next words better.

The fellow who tends the greenhouse gardens? Trust me, Lady, you'd let him stake your tomatoes.

But surprises were nothing new to her. Like opening a can of mushroom soup and finding tomato instead; be grateful and eat it anyway.

The garden is one of the two great metaphors for humanity. The garden is about life and beauty and the impermanence of all living things. The garden is about feeding your children, providing food for the tribe. It’s part of an urgent territorial drive that we can probably trace back to animals storing food. It’s a competitive display mechanism, like having a prize bull, this greed for the best tomatoes and English tea roses. It’s about winning; about providing society with superior things; and about proving that you have taste, and good values, and you work hard. And what a wonderful relief, every so often, to know who the enemy is. Because in the garden, the enemy is everything: the aphids, the weather, time. And so you pour yourself into it, care so much, and see up close so much birth, and growth, and beauty, and danger, and triumph. And then everything dies anyway, right? But you just keep doing it.

I like that color you turn. It makes you look like a tomato. A very dignified tomato. A tomato above all other tomatoes, one that rules his garden with a squishy iron fist.

The raw tomato, devoured in the garden when freshly picked, is a horn of abundance of simple sensations, a radiating rush in one's mouth that brings with it every pleasure. . . . a tomato, an adventure.

Dude, some of these kids have never even seen a fucking vegetable garden before. Can you believe it? And this one kid, he's never seen a tomato plant, right? But he makes coke into crack in his bedroom.

On Wednesday, for variety, he accosted Andrew as Andrew went out to check the state of the garden walls and presented a further cardboard box containing ten kilos of tomatoes and a squash like a deformed head of a baby.

My mother has told me once and for all the useful parts. She will add nothing unless powered by necessity, a riverbank that guides her life. She plants vegetable gardens rather than lawns; she carries the odd-shaped tomatoes home from the field and eats food left for the gods.

Uncle Bruno and I celebrated the miracle of life with every chick that hatched from its egg and every tomato that came from the garden to the table; he taught me to observe and listen attentively, to get my bearings in the woods, to swim in freezing lakes and rivers, to start a fire without a match, to enjoy the pleasure of sinking my face into a juicy watermelon, and to accept the inevitable pain of saying goodbye to people and animals, because there is no life without death, as he always said.

home, it’s different. I mean yes, you want money and a job, but there’s a hundred other things you do for getting by, especially older people and farmers with the crops, tomato gardens and such. Hunting and fishing, plus all the woman things, making quilts and clothes. Whether big or small, you’ve always got the place you’re living on. I’ve known people to raise a beef in the yard behind their rented trailer. I was getting the picture now on why June’s doom castle had freaked me out. Having some ground to stand on, that’s our whole basis. It’s the bags of summer squash and shelly beans everybody gives you from their gardens, and on from there. The porch rockers where the mammaws get together and knit baby clothes for the pregnant high school girls. Sandwiches the church ladies pack for the hungrier kids to take home on weekends.

It was August and the fields were high with corn. In the orchard the last of the peaches clung to their branches and the apples were showing their first pinkish blush. The vegetable garden overflowed with produce: peppers, green beans, zucchini, tomatoes, cucumbers, and squash.

She went to the open door and stood in it and looked out among the tomato vines and "jimpson" weeds that constituted the garden. No Tom. So she lifted up her voice at an angle calculated for distance and shouted:

In a garden, food arises from partnership. If I don't pick rocks and pull weeds, I'm not fulfilling my end of the bargain. I can do these thing with my handy opposable thumb and capacity to use tools, to shovel manure. But I can no more create a tomato or embroider a trellis in beans than I can turn lead into gold. That is the plants' responsibility and their gift: animating the inanimate. Now there is a gift.

Border crossings in the Balkans, where bitter wars have been waged, were not regarded as pleasurable; in many places, they weren't even possible, and one avoided them. But, while riding in the droshky and later, when we dismounted, we saw the most luxuriant orchards and vegetable gardens, dark-violet eggplants, peppers, tomatoes, cucumbers, gigantic pumpkins and melons; I couldn't get over my amazement at all the different things that grew here. "That's what it's like here", said Mother, "a blessed land. And it's a civilized land, no one should be ashamed of being born here.

We had no money, but I felt we were rich: the pleasure of having some pecorino cheese, a few garden-grown tomatoes, and a liter of olive oil; of making love in the car, with Alba just sleeping quietly in the corner, was beyond wealth. There is no price for that. It was so impossibly beautiful - all three of us breathing the same rhythm, the days going by...

my new garden was resilient, and I realized as I crouched down to weed the new vine tomatoes, so was I.

Things grow for me in the garden, little green promises that, in good time, are kept: I will give you tomatoes, I promise you corn. People do not always keep their promises, even when you tend their soil.

There aren’t a lot of hobbies you can eat. Like, let’s say you love to cook. That’s a bad example. Let’s say you love to travel, and everywhere you go, you try the food at the best local— My point is, I love gardening as a hobby. Right now in our garden, Portia and I are growing tomatoes, peppers, zucchini, beets, eggplant,

Pick the tomato warm from the garden. Sit right there in a sunny patch if you've got one. Brush off any dirt and bugs, but don't make yourself crazy. Sprinkle with a little salt. And don't you add one other thing, because there's just something about a tomato being a tomato. Eat it like an apple. Let the juices run down your chin, and then wipe 'em away with your shirtsleeve. You heard me. The perfect summer tomato is worth half a shirt. And that's the truth.

We surf-fished in the breakers catching spottail bass and flounder for dinner. I discovered that summer that I loved to cook and feed my friends, and I enjoyed the sound of their praise as they purred with pleasure at the meals I fixed over glowing iron and fire. I had the run of my grandparents’ garden and I would put ears of sweet corn in aluminum foil after washing them in seawater and slathering them with butter and salt and pepper. Beneath the stars we would eat the beefsteak tomatoes okra and the field peas flavored with salt pork and jalapeno peppers. I would walk through the disciplined rows that brimmed with purple eggplants and watermelons and cucumbers, gathering vegetables. My grandfather, Silas, told us that summer that low country earth was so fertile you could drop a dime into it and grow a money tree.

Harvest Time When Daddy's garden is ready it is filled with words that make me laugh when I say them -- pole beans and tomatoes, okra and corn sweet peas and sugar snaps, lettuce and squash. Who could have imagined so much color that the ground disappears and we are left walking through an autumn's worth of crazy words that beneath the magic of my grandmother's hands become side dishes.

My point is, I love gardening as a hobby. Right now in our garden, Portia and I are growing tomatoes, peppers, zucchini, beets, eggplant, basil, and a whole assortment of herbs. It smells nice, it looks nice, and I can't tell you how satisfying it is to be able to host a dinner party and offer my quests the literal fruits of my labor. (As it turns out, these are very different than the fruits of one's loins. At a recent dinner party, I accidently asked Martha Stewart how she was enjoying the fruits of my loins and she nearly choked on her stew.)

...the reality of late summer and early autumn when Adelaide, more than any place on earth, and as simply as pouring tea from a pot, pours fourth from a lavish cornucopia into gardens and parks and markets and arcade stalls a cascade of carnations and grapes and melons, guavas and Michaelmas daisies and tomatoes, zinnias and belladonna lilies and tuberoses, lavender and quinces and cumquats and pomegranates, roses and roses and roses.

The gardener digs a hole in the ground and throws in a seed and waters it and he hopes something comes up. Now, he knows generally what’s going to come up. He knows whether he planted an acorn for an oak tree or a tomato plant to get some tomatoes for the summer. But there’s a lot of details he doesn’t know. It may not grow at all. It may grow a little and then die. It may go wild. A chipmunk may eat it during the night. You don’t know.

Typewriters and computers were not designed with steep mountain slopes in mind. On one occasion last autumn I did carry my typewriter into the garden, and I am still trying to extricate a couple of acorns from under the keys, while the roller seems permanently stained from some fine yellow pollen dust from the deodar trees. But armed with pencils and paper, I can lie on the grass and write for hours. Provided there are a couple of cheese-and-tomato sandwiches within easy reach.

You will realize that those round, pinkish red things that are available in the stores bear no resemblance at all to the real tomato

Gardening is, by its very nature, an expression of the triumph of optimism over experience. No matter how bad this year was, there's always next year. Experience doesn't count.

Dr. Ransome marked the exercises in the algebra textbook and gave him two strips of rice-paper bandage on which to solve the simultaneous equations. As he stood up, Dr. Ransome removed the three tomatoes from Jim's pocket. He laid them on the table by the wax tray. 'Did they come from the hospital garden?' 'Yes.' Jim gazed back frankly at Dr. Ransome. Recently he had begun to see him with a more adult eye. The long years of imprisonment, the constant disputes with the Japanese had made this young physician seem middle-aged. Dr. Ransome was often unsure of himself, as he was of Jim's theft. 'I have to give Basie something whenever I see him.' 'I know. It's a good thing that you're friends with Basie. He's a survivor, though survivors can be dangerous. Wars exist for people like Basie.' Dr. Ransome placed the tomatoes in Jim's hand. 'I want you to eat them, Jim. I'll get you something for Basie.

I hoped that I would give to my marriage the same nurturing that I found easy to give to the corn and the tomatoes. Raising a garden and keeping a marriage in shape are not that different.

maybe we will meet again in another place- a place where forgiveness grows as lovely as the tomatoes you used to grow in your garden. - the shiny red hope that gets me through late nights.

Ever since, two summers ago, Joe Marino had begun to come into her bed, a preposterous fecundity had overtaken the staked plans, out in the side garden where the southwestern sun slanted in through the line of willows each long afternoon. The crooked little tomato branches, pulpy and pale as if made of cheap green paper, broke under the weight of so much fruit; there was something frantic in such fertility, a crying-out like that of children frantic to please. Of plants, tomatoes seemed the most human, eager and fragile and prone to rot. Picking the watery orange-red orbs, Alexandra felt she was cupping a giant lover’s testicles in her hand.

As it turned out, the purée of spring vegetables exceeded Mr. Ravenel's description. The soft reddish-orange emulsion really did taste like a garden. It was a bold, creamy harmony of astringent tomato, sweet carrots, potatoes, and greens, bound together in a lively snap of springtime. As Phoebe bit into a half-crisp, half-sodden crouton, she closed her eyes to savor it. God, it had been so long since she'd really tasted anything.

The breakdown of the neighborhoods also meant the end of what was essentially an extended family....With the breakdown of the extended family, too much pressure was put on the single family. Mom had no one to stay with Granny, who couldn't be depended on to set the house on fire while Mom was off grocery shopping. The people in the neighborhood weren't there to keep an idle eye out for the fourteen-year-old kid who was the local idiot, and treated with affection as well as tormented....So we came up with the idea of putting everybody in separate places. We lock them up in prisons, mental hospitals, geriatric housing projects, old-age homes, nursery schools, cheap suburbs that keep women and the kids of f the streets, expensive suburbs where everybody has their own yard and a front lawn that is tended by a gardener so all the front lawns look alike and nobody uses them anyway....the faster we lock them up, the higher up goes the crime rate, the suicide rate, the rate of mental breakdown. The way it's going, there'll be more of them than us pretty soon. Then you'll have to start asking questions about the percentage of the population that's not locked up, those that claim that the other fifty-five per cent is crazy, criminal, or senile. WE have to find some other way....So I started imagining....Suppose we built houses in a circle, or a square, or whatever, connected houses of varying sizes, but beautiful, simple. And outside, behind the houses, all the space usually given over to front and back lawns, would be common too. And there could be vegetable gardens, and fields and woods for the kids to play in. There's be problems about somebody picking the tomatoes somebody else planted, or the roses, or the kids trampling through the pea patch, but the fifty groups or individuals who lived in the houses would have complete charge and complete responsibility for what went on in their little enclave. At the other side of the houses, facing the, would be a little community center. It would have a community laundry -- why does everybody have to own a washing machine?-- and some playrooms and a little cafe and a communal kitchen. The cafe would be an outdoor one, with sliding glass panels to close it in in winter, like the ones in Paris. This wouldn't be a full commune: everybody would have their own way of earning a living, everybody would retain their own income, and the dwellings would be priced according to size. Each would have a little kitchen, in case people wanted to eat alone, a good-sized living space, but not enormous, because the community center would be there. Maybe the community center would be beautiful, lush even. With playrooms for the kids and the adults, and sitting rooms with books. But everyone in the community, from the smallest walking child, would have a job in it.

She walked over to the tomato bushes, the centerpiece of the spectacular garden plot. In her mind's eye she could see her mother in a house dress that somehow looked pretty on her, a green-sprigged apron, bleached Keds with no socks, a straw hat to keep the sun from her eyes. Mamma never hurried in the garden, and she used all her senses while tending it. She would hold a tomato in the palm of her hand, determining its ripeness by its softness and heft. Or she would inhale the fragrance of pepperoncini or bell peppers, test a pinch of flat leaf parsley or mint between her teeth. Everything had to be at its peak before Mamma brought it to the kitchen.

Sunsets. Stargazing. The dream of a home with a garden. Tomato plants. Sunshine. Strawberry ice cream. New tattoos. Road trips. Mangos. All the books you haven’t read yet. Days spent at the beach. Violets. Saltwater. Plane tickets. Poetry.

We made a mezze dinner with the fresh bread we had baked earlier—fried tomatoes, garlic and zucchini from the garden, boiled eggs, the last of our Nabulsi cheese, zeit-o-za’atar, labneh with olive oil and paprika, sliced cucumber, beets, and pickled vegetables.

This is what happens when people like you get all carried away with follow-through: if you gardened like me and just bought a bunch of plants, brought them home and let them die you wouldn’t be in this kind of trouble.” “You don’t have any tomatoes,” she pointed out. Which is true enough, I suppose, but then—neither does she.

Within our Task Force, as in a garden, the outcome was less dependent on the initial planting than on consistent maintenance. Watering, weeding, and protecting plants from rabbits and disease are essential for success. The gardener cannot actually “grow” tomatoes, squash, or beans—she can only foster an environment in which the plants do so.

As Yarrow slept and the moon rose high in the sky, a breeze rustled through stalks of onyx-hued basil and deep gray sage, tall as sunflowers. Starlight fell in slants across petals of black violets. A night-dark strawberry rolled across the ground. A plum-colored tomato fell from its stem. Borage and pansies and nasturtium in varying shades of black and gray turned the darkness into its own kind of rainbow. Beneath the soil lurked something even darker. Generations of pain saturated the earth, fed each stem and fruit and flower. In the soft, thick leaves of sage: loss. In the blackened basil: broken hearts. Tucked inside the husks of charcoal corn: anger and betrayal. Trapped within the bell of burgundy calla lilies: stolen innocence.

The garden flourished that summer because Magnus's mother was determined to feed her family despite the depredations of the distant war. In the fall, there were beans and tomatoes and pickles to can, and jar after jar of applesauce. Mama's hives yielded fresh honey, and then willow skeps were winterized. The bees would not come out until the air warmed and the sun appeared.

And there were so many places to go. Thickets of bramble. Fallen trees. Ferns, and violets, and gorse, paths all lined with soft green moss. And in the very heart of the wood, there was a clearing, with a circle of stones, and an old well in the middle, next to a big dead oak tree, and everything- fallen branches, standing stones, even the well, with its rusty pump- draped and festooned and piled knee-high with ruffles and flounces of strawberries, with blackbirds picking over the fruit, and the scent like all of summer. It wasn't like the rest of the farm. Narcisse's farm is very neat, with everything set out in its place. A little field for sunflowers: one for cabbages; one for squash; one for Jerusalem artichokes. Apple trees to one side; peaches and plums to the other. And in the polytunnels, there were daffodils, tulips, freesias; and in season, lettuce, tomatoes, beans. All neatly planted, in rows, with nets to keep the birds from stealing them. But here there were no nets, or polytunnels, or windmills to frighten away the birds. Just that clearing of strawberries, and the old well in the circle of stones. There was no bucket in the well. Just the broken pump, and the trough, and a grate to cover the hole, which was very deep, and not quite straight, and filled with ferns and that swampy smell. And if you put your eye to the grate, you could see a roundel of sky reflected in the water, and little pink flowers growing out from between the cracks in the old stone. And there was a kind of draught coming up from under the ground, as if something was hiding there and breathing, very quietly.

It's been over a year since they've visited their son's market. As they walk through the parking lot they take in a number of improvements. Brian admires the raised garden beds made of cedar planks that flank the sides of the lot. There are stalks of tomatoes, staked beans, baskets of green herbs- oregano, lavender, fragrant blades of lemongrass and pointed curry leaf. The planter of baby lettuces has a chalkboard hung from its side: "Just add fork." A wheelbarrow parked by the door is heaped with bright coronas of sunflowers, white daisies, jagged red ginger and birds-of-paradise. Avis feels a leap of pride as they enter the market: the floor of polished bamboo, the sky-blue ceiling, the wooden shelves- like bookshelves in a library. And the smells. Warm, round billows of baking bread, roasting garlic and onions and chicken.

The gardener made a sound that suggested people in the Americas might do any sort of lunatic thing, whether making war against their Crown or eating poisonous fruit. Knightley tried again. “Apparently tomatoes are becoming quite popular in London—used in soups and stews and all sorts of dishes.” “They’re even crazier in London than in America,” the gardener said, apparently considering the tomato absolute proof of this assertion.

Roasted Tomato Soup Serves 4-6 This soup is perfect for those cold winter nights when you want to relax with a comforting grilled cheese and tomato soup combo. The slow roasting of the tomatoes gives it tons of flavor. If you have a garden full of fresh tomatoes, feel free to use those instead of the canned variety. Stay away from fresh grocery store tomatoes in the winter, as they are usually flavorless and mealy and won’t give you the best results. This creamy soup also makes a luxurious starter for a dinner party or other occasion. 1 28 ounce can peeled whole tomatoes, drained 1/4 cup olive oil 1 teaspoon dried Italian seasoning 1/2 small red onion, chopped 2 cloves garlic, rough chopped 1/4 cup chicken broth 1/2 cup ricotta cheese 1/2 cup heavy cream Add the tomatoes, olive oil, herbs, and broth to your slow cooker pot. Cover and cook on low for about 6 hours, until the vegetables are soft. Use either a blender or immersion blender to puree the soup and transfer back to slow cooker. Add the ricotta and heavy cream and turn the cooker to warm if you can. Serve warm.

TELLING TIME Before she was old, she took canoe trips in the rain and buried her passions deep within nature poems. Ten years before she was old, her husband died and developers paid a mighty price for their dairy farm. She knew she was getting old, when rest stops in Iowa changed over to those crazy automated washrooms. When she was old, God helped with little things (growing tomatoes in her garden) but was missing on big ticket items (bringing her husband back). She knew she had lived too long when her grandson explained extinction to his stuffed polar bear.

Our gardening forebears meant watermelon to be the juicy, barefoot taste of a hot summer's end, just as a pumpkin is the trademark fruit of late October. Most of us accept the latter, and limit our jack-o'-latern activities to the proper botanical season. Waiting for a watermelon is harder. It's tempting to reach for melons, red peppers, tomatoes, and other late-summer delights before the summer even arrives. But it's actually possible to wait, celebrating each season when it comes, not fretting about its being absent at all other times because something else good is at hand.

Beef consommé or purée of spring vegetables," she read aloud. "I suppose I'll have the consommé." "You'd choose weak broth over spring vegetables?" "I've never had much of an appetite." "No, just listen: the cook sends for a basket of ripe vegetables from the kitchen gardens- leeks, carrots, young potatoes, vegetable marrow, tomatoes- and simmers them with fresh herbs. When it's all soft, she purées the mixture until it's like silk, and finishes it with heavy cream. It's brought to the table in an earthenware dish and ladled over croutons fried in butter. You can taste the entire garden in every spoonful.

The franks came freshly grilled, with long slivers of pickle, hot peppers, and tomato slices, along with onions and that peculiar Chicago relish that is so green, it looks like a traffic light signaling go, eat, enjoy. Oliver splatted mustard on top—no ketchup, thank you—and took a bite. Through the soft bun and garden loaded on top he could feel the casing snap between his teeth and taste the spurt of grease. Suddenly there was no war, no politics, his mother was still alive, his father still knew how to smile, his brother was home from Vietnam, and Ernie Banks was back to playing shortstop at Wrigley Field. Was there anything better in the

Sunlight glowed orange through the lacework of slender eucalyptus trees that lined the ridge to the east, and in the vegetable garden, directly across the driveway, pale purple garlic flowers swayed at the top of their stems. The sweet scent of basil reached her with the breeze and, on a whim, Mrs. Turner crossed the driveway to inspect the beds. The four square planters were set like windowpanes and divided by truncating brick paths, each box overflowing with carefully-tended strawberries, tomatoes, and spinach, as well as copious herbs. A row of bay trees lined the back wall of the garden, either side of a wooden arch trailing white wisteria flowers.

Alongside the house he planted orange and grapefruit, two more pomegranate trees, and one unbelievable tree that yielded oranges, lemons, tangerines, and other citrus fruits that I do not recall-- perhaps grapefruit and, perhaps, according to the storyline nature of my family, avocado or tomato. Either way, that tree aroused awe and excitement within me, and this is only increased when I asked my mother how her father had managed to create it. 'He's a magician,' she said. Years later I discovered it was a perfectly ordinary grafting of bitter orange understock, but my mother's words were already engraved upon me, and the impression had never dissipated.

Tonight, Nellie had put on quite a spread: a vegetable platter to start things off, with radish roses and olives pierced with embellished toothpicks and fresh tomatoes from her garden; canapés and shrimp cocktail and Vienna sausages and deviled eggs; then her Chicken à la King, and when they were all nearly too full to eat another thing, Baked Alaska for dessert. The conversation had been pleasant, the men discussing the upcoming election and General Electric-Telechron's new "revolutionary" snooze alarm clock, the women swooning about Elvis Presley and gossiping about Marilyn Monroe's recent wedding to Arthur Miller, which everyone agreed was an odd pairing.

You pay homage when and where you can. I love the smell of the bulb as the earth opens and releases it in harvest, an aroma that only those who grow garlic and handle the bulb and the leaves still fresh from the earth can know.Anyone who gardens knows these indescribable presences--of not only fresh garlic, but onions, carrots and their tops, parsley's piercing signal, the fragrant exultations of a tomato plant in its prime, sweet explosions of basil. They can be known best and most purely on the spot, in the instant, in the garden, in the sun, in the rain. They cannot be carried away from their place in the earth. They are inimitable. And they have no shelf life at all.

A Girl's Garden" A neighbor of mine in the village Likes to tell how one spring When she was a girl on the farm, she did A childlike thing. One day she asked her father To give her a garden plot To plant and tend and reap herself, And he said, 'Why not?' In casting about for a corner He thought of an idle bit Of walled-off ground where a shop had stood, And he said, 'Just it.' And he said, 'That ought to make you An ideal one-girl farm, And give you a chance to put some strength On your slim-jim arm.' It was not enough of a garden Her father said, to plow; So she had to work it all by hand, But she don't mind now. She wheeled the dung in a wheelbarrow Along a stretch of road; But she always ran away and left Her not-nice load, And hid from anyone passing. And then she begged the seed. She says she thinks she planted one Of all things but weed. A hill each of potatoes, Radishes, lettuce, peas, Tomatoes, beets, beans, pumpkins, corn, And even fruit trees. And yes, she has long mistrusted That a cider-apple In bearing there today is hers, Or at least may be. Her crop was a miscellany When all was said and done, A little bit of everything, A great deal of none. Now when she sees in the village How village things go, Just when it seems to come in right, She says, 'I know! 'It's as when I was a farmer...' Oh never by way of advice! And she never sins by telling the tale To the same person twice.

I unpacked and took a shower, trying to wash the road and a little of my mingled grief and anger off me. Rachel had a point, but was it wrong to want a single, peaceful evening? The smell of roasting hens, peppery and succulent, wafted up the stairs as I got dressed, like a sensory argument for respite. Birchie would serve them with fat slices of the summer’s first heirloom tomatoes from the back garden and her famous cornbread. To make it, she saved bacon drippings in a coffee can by the stove, and she’d put some of that grease into the cast-iron skillet and set it in the oven. She’d make batter while the rendered fat got so hot that it was close to smoking. The sizzle of the batter landing in that pan was the kitchen soundtrack of my youth.

My eye keeps escaping towards the big blue lacquered door that I've had painted in a trompe-l'oeil on the back wall. I would like to call Mrs. Cohen back and tell her there's no problem for her son's bar mitzvah, everything's ready: I would like to go through that door and disappear into the garden my mind's eye has painted behind it. The grass there is soft and sweet, there are bulrushes bowing along the banks of a river. I put lime trees in it, hornbeams, weeping elms, blossoming cherries and liquidambars. I plant it with ancient roses, daffodils, dahlias with their melancholy heavy heads, and flowerbeds of forget-me-nots. Pimpernels, armed with all the courage peculiar to such tiny entities, follow the twists and turns between the stones of a rockery. Triumphant artichokes raise their astonished arrows towards the sky. Apple trees and lilacs blossom at the same time as hellebores and winter magnolias. My garden knows no seasons. It is both hot and cool. Frost goes hand in hand with a shimmering heat haze. The leaves fall and grow again. row and fall again. Wisteria climbs voraciously over tumbledown walls and ancient porches leading to a boxwood alley with a poignant fragrance. The heady smell of fruit hangs in the air. Huge peaches, chubby-cheeked apricots, jewel-like cherries, redcurrants, raspberries, spanking red tomatoes and bristly cardoons feast on sunlight and water, because between the sunbeams it rains in rainbow-colored droplets. At the very end, beyond a painted wooden fence, is a woodland path strewn with brown leaves, protected from the heat of the skies by a wide parasol of foliage fluttering in the breeze. You can't see the end of it, just keep walking, and breathe.

Once inside the hedge, the garden, though sleeping for the winter, nevertheless seemed to glimmer with hidden life. A winding flagstone path made its leisurely way to the door of the house, lined on both sides with tufts of sage, thyme, rosemary, and lavender, grayed with cold. In place of grass, the earth on either side of the path was a riot of plants in varying stages of hibernation and decay. To this side, the dried stalks of full-grown asparagus rustled together. In the far corner, their roots sunk into the wood of the house, an array of nightshades — tomato plants, dried and brown, the gnarled tangles of henbane and moonshade lying in wait for spring. The webbed vines overhead cast the garden in long blue shadow, blurred at the corners, hard to make out, and yet strangely the air inside the garden was not as bitingly cold as it was in the outside world.

Miss Rose sitting on a porch. Beside her, a bushel basket of ripe peaches or tomatoes. The drunkards buzzing, but easily smashed with a swat. Early mornings, she starts singing, "What a Friend We Have in Jesus," and that's your cue to rise. To eat the heavy breakfast that will keep you full all day. Once you've helped her with peeling those tomatoes or peaches, there are weeds to be plucked from the garden, from around the vegetables that will show up fresh on the supper table. Fish need cleaning if Uncle Norman comes through with a prize. After dinner, the piecing together of quilt tops from remnants until the light completely fades. The next morning, it starts again. A woman singing off-key praises to the Lord. The sweet fruit dripping with juice. The sound of bugs. I thought of what Mama liked to say: to find this kind of love, you have to enter deep country.

I want to plant a garden, Dewey,” I said. “Can you tell me the best place on the hill to do it?  I keep trying to remember where Nana had hers, but none of the soil looks good enough to me.” “What you want to grow?” he asked. “Nothing much. Tomatoes, cucumbers, okra, some summer squash. Whatever the season isn’t passed for.” “I’ll come up tomorrow and string you a spot,” he said, “if that works for you. You might have to do some serious clearing afore you can plant, though. Almost too late for planting tomatoes, but the rest ought to do fine. You can have all the tomatoes you want from my garden. I always get more than enough.” “Thanks. If you have green ones, I’ll take a few tonight. I’ve wanted to fry some ever since I got home. Remember how Nana used to serve us fried green tomatoes and squash?” “Made the best cornbread in the county,” he said. “Her cornbread was like eating cake.

As we walk through Savignio, the copper light of dusk settling over the town's narrow streets, we stop anyone we can find to ask for his or her ragù recipe. A retired policeman says he likes an all-pork sauce with a heavy hit of pancetta, the better for coating the pasta. A gelato maker explains that a touch of milk defuses the acidity of the tomato and ties the whole sauce together. Overhearing our kitchen talk below, an old woman in a navy cardigan pokes her head out of a second-story window to offer her take on the matter: "I only use tomatoes from my garden- fresh when they're in season, preserved when it gets cold." Inspired by the Savignio citizenry, we buy meat from the butcher, vegetables and wine from a small stand in the town's piazza, and head to Alessandro's house to simmer up his version of ragù: two parts chopped skirt steak, one part ground pancetta, the sautéed vegetable trio, a splash of dry white wine, and a few canned San Marzano tomatoes.

Ahead, a house sits close to the road: a small, single-story place painted mint green. Ivy grows up one corner and onto the roof, the green tendrils swaying like a girl's hair let loose from a braid. In front there's a full and busy vegetable garden, with plants jostling for real estate and bees making a steady, low, collective hum. It reminds me of the aunties' gardens, and my nonna's when I was a kid. Tomato plants twist gently skywards, their lazy stems tied to stakes. Leafy heads of herbs- dark parsley, fine-fuzzed purple sage, bright basil that the caterpillars love to punch holes in. Rows and rows of asparagus. Whoever lives here must work in the garden a lot. It's wild but abundant, and I know it takes a special vigilance to maintain a garden of this size. The light wind lifts the hair from my neck and brings the smell of tomato stalks. The scent, green and full of promise, brings to mind a childhood memory- playing in Aunty Rosa's yard as Papa speaks with a cousin, someone from Italy. I am imagining families of fairies living in the berry bushes: making their clothes from spiderweb silk, flitting with wings that glimmer pink and green like dragonflies'.

This Is Not an Elegy At sixteen, I was illegal and brilliant, my fingernails chewed to half-moons. I took off my clothes in a late March field. I had secret car wrecks, secret hysteria. I opened my mouth to swallow stars. In backseats I learned the alchemy of guilt, lust, and distance. I was unformed and total. I swore like a sailor. But slowly the cops stopped coming around. The heat lifted its palms. The radio lost some teeth. Now I see the landscape behind me as through a Claude glass— tinted deeper, framed just so, bits of gilt edging the best parts. I see my unlined face, a thousand film stars behind the eyes. I was every murderess, every whip- thin alcoholic, every heroine with the silver tongue. Always young Paul Newman’s best girl. Always a lightning sky behind each kiss. Some days I watch myself in the third person, speak to her in the second. I say: I will meet you in sleep. I will know you by your stillness and your shaking. By your second-hand gown. By your bruises left by mouths since forgotten. This is not an elegy because I cannot bear for it to be. It is only a tree branch against the window. It is only a cherry tomato slowly reddening in the garden. I will put it in my mouth. It will be sweet, and you will swallow.

Joe had always pretended indifference to flowers. He preferred fruit trees, herbs and vegetables, things to be picked and harvested, stored, dried, pickled, bottled, pulped, made into wine. But there were always flowers in his garden all thee same. Planted as if on an afterthought: dahlias, poppies, lavender, hollyhocks. Roses twined among the tomatoes. Sweet peas among the bean poles. Part of it was camouflage, of course. Part of it a lure for bees. But the truth was that Joe liked flowers, and was reluctant even to pull weeds. Jay would not have seen the rose garden if he had not known where to look. The wall against which the roses had once been trained had been partly knocked down, leaving an irregular section of brick about fifteen feet long. Greenery had shot up it, almost reaching the top, creating a dense thicket in which he hardly recognized the roses themselves. With the shears he clipped a few briars free and revealed a single large red rose almost touching the ground. "Old rose," remarked Joe, peering closer. "Best kind for cookin'. You should try makin' some rose petal jam. Champion." Jay wielded the shears again, pulling the tendrils away from the bush. He could see more rosebuds now, tight and green away from the sun. The scent from the open flower was light and earthy.

Think for a moment of a tomato plant. A healthy plant can have over a hundred tomatoes on it. In order to get this tomato plant with all these tomatoes on it, we need to start with a small dried seed. That seed doesn’t look like a tomato plant. It sure doesn’t taste like a tomato plant. If you didn’t know for sure, you would not even believe it could be a tomato plant. However, let’s say you plant this seed in fertile soil, and you water it and let the sun shine on it. When the first little tiny shoot comes up, you don’t stomp on it and say, “That’s not a tomato plant.” Rather, you look at it and say, “Oh boy! Here it comes,” and you watch it grow with delight. In time, if you continue to water it and give it lots of sunshine and pull away any weeds, you might have a tomato plant with more than a hundred luscious tomatoes. It all began with that one tiny seed. It is the same with creating a new experience for yourself. The soil you plant in is your subconscious mind. The seed is the new affirmation. The whole new experience is in this tiny seed. You water it with affirmations. You let the sunshine of positive thoughts beam on it. You weed the garden by pulling out the negative thoughts that come up. And when you first see the tiniest little evidence, you don’t stomp on it and say, “That’s not enough!” Instead, you look at this first breakthrough and exclaim with glee, “Oh boy! Here it comes! It’s working!” Then you watch it grow and become your desire in manifestation.

Pasta with Garlic Scapes and Fresh Tomatoes In Italy, you can find a garden anywhere there is a patch of soil, and in many areas, the growing season is nearly year round. It’s common to find an abundant tomato vine twining up the wall near someone’s front stoop, or a collection of herbs and greens adorning a window box. Other staples of an Italian kitchen garden include aubergine, summer squash varieties and peppers of all sorts. Perhaps that’s why the best dishes are so very simple. Gather the fresh ingredients from your garden or local farmers’ market, toss everything together with some hot pasta and serve. In the early summer and mid-autumn, look for garlic scapes, prized for their mild flavor and slight sweetness. Scapes are the willowy green stems and unopened flower buds of hardneck garlic varieties. Roasting garlic scapes with tomatoes and red onion brings out their sweet, rich flavor for a delightful summer meal. 2 swirls of olive oil 10 garlic scapes 1 pint multicolored cherry tomatoes 1 red onion, thinly sliced Sea salt and red pepper flakes, to taste ½ lb. pasta—fettuccine, tubini or spaghetti are good choices 1 cup baby spinach, arugula or fresh basil leaves, or a combination 1 lemon, zested and juiced Toasted pine nuts for garnish Heat oven to 400 ° F. Toss together olive oil, garlic scapes, tomatoes, onion, salt and pepper flakes and spread in an even layer on a parchment-lined baking sheet. Roast for 12–15 minutes, until tomatoes are just beginning to burst. If you have other garden vegetables, such as peppers, zucchini or aubergine, feel free to add that. Meanwhile, cook pasta according to package directions. Toss everything together with the greens, lemon zest and juice. Garnish with pine nuts. Serve immediately with a nice Barolo wine.

Quickly she shredded the cabbage on the chopping block and tossed it along with the onion and tomatoes in a blue Pyrex bowl. Then she slid the lamb chops, encrusted with fresh rosemary, into the oven. While the lamb baked, she brushed her hair in the washroom and pinned it back again. Then she zipped on a silk floral dress she'd purchased in Bristol and retrieved her grandmother's rhinestone necklace, one of the few family heirlooms her mother packed for her, to clasp around her neck. At the foot of the bed was the antique trunk she'd brought from her childhood home in Balham more than a decade ago. Opening the trunk, she removed her wedding album along with her treasured copy of 'The Secret Garden' and the tubes of watercolors her father had sent with her and her brother. Her father hoped she would spend time painting on the coast, but Maggie hadn't inherited his talent or passion for art. Sometimes she wondered if Edmund would have become an artist. Carefully she took out her newest treasures- pieces of crystal she and Walter hd received as wedding presents, protected by pages and pages of her husband's newspaper. She unwrapped the crystal and two silver candlesticks, then set them on the white-cloaked dining table. She arranged the candlesticks alongside a small silver bowl filled with mint jelly and a basket with sliced whole-meal bread from the bakery. After placing white, tapered candles into the candlesticks, she lit them and stepped back to admire her handiwork. Satisfied, she blew them out. Once she heard Walter at the door, she'd quickly relight the candles. When the timer chimed, she removed the lamb chops and turned off the oven, placing the pan on her stovetop and covering it with foil. She'd learned a lot about housekeeping in the past decade, and now she was determined to learn how to be the best wife to Walter. And a doting mother to their children. If only she could avoid the whispers from her aunt's friends.

There was loads of food set up on a large picnic table just outside the kitchen door. Potato salad with green beans. Sautéed squash with onions and garlic. Tomatoes on their own, or stuffed with cream cheese, or with rice and peppers. Bowls of salad, dressed and undressed. Fresh bread. Berry pie, berry cobbler, berries and cream. Pretty much everything had been grown by the class, and it was enormously satisfying to eat it all.

As the lamb roasted slowly for hours, Roland turned it and rubbed it with a mixture of olive oil, paprika, cayenne, salt, rosemary, and sage, so that the outside crusted into a beautiful reddish mahogany color. We cut it up before our guests on a large wooden picnic table. The inside was pink and moist, the outside charred and crusty, and the couscous accompaniment flavorful, hot, and plentiful. We also served tomatoes with basil from the garden, red beets with shallots, a pâté of chicken and duck livers, homemade saucisson, wild mushrooms à la grecque (marinated in olive oil and lemon juice with coriander seed), and breads that Loulou had baked fresh. We washed all of this down with cooled Beaujolais and half-gallons of Almadén white wine. For dessert, we had summer fruits with cognac, a chocolate mousse, and a pound cake made by Jean-Claude.

It’s a waste to season pasta water with fleur de sel or make tomato sauce with Maldon salt. Instead, sprinkle these salts atop delicate garden lettuces, rich caramel sauces, and chocolate chip cookies as they go into the oven so you can enjoy the way they crunch in your mouth.

So I loved you because I thought you would be fat. I thought you would increase, multiply, develop a big belly, double cheeks, triple chins, dimpled knees. I thought there would be more of you. You'd stand out in a crowd, flaunt fashion. We'd have to buy clothes in stores catering to the big fellow. In your hands birds would nest. On your knees children would perch. You would rock marvelously— better than any rocking chair, better than any row boat. You would conjure up the sound and feel of water, the expanse of sea—its waves and calms, its storms under control. In your arms I would be sailing without the bother of shipwreck. All our gardens would grow if you dropped the seeds. Pumpkins would explode for fullness. Tomatoes so heavy would collapse their vines. Cauliflowers sprouting the size of streetlights. Your voice would fill the house— raise the ceilings, flood the windows. I'd hear you in every room. Over storms your voice would carry, lightning would not diminish you. What happened? You are no larger than me. Our voices fill the same small space. No soft flesh to press my fingers into deeply before I hit the road of your body. Your bones are as clear to find as mine, neither distinct nor hidden. They are simply the usual set— they suffice. They hold us together with no genius. The self you offer me is not unlike my self— no great dimensions, no extraordinary appetite. I don't live in the tower of your sound. Trees are outside our human scale and birds belong more properly in them. The only nest we can build is a nest for ourselves. In short, my dear you are my equal. We can only grow what every other can grow— the seeds we have been given.

One of the more interesting work-alignment tactics I came across while writing this book was that of Sheryl Woodhouse-Keese, who owns an earth-friendly stationery outfit called Twisted Limb Paperworks in Bloomington, Indiana. Woodhouse-Keese put her headquarters on a ten-acre farm (her house is at the other end), and started growing tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, herbs, melons, and so forth. But, of course, there turned out to be a huge overlap between people who wanted to work at a recycled paper stationery company, and people who are interested in small scale, sustainable agriculture. So, quickly, the farm “turned from my personal garden into an employee garden,” Woodhouse-Keese says. Now, many Twisted Limb Paperworks employees take their breaks in the garden while pulling weeds, and load up bags of produce into their trunks rather than stopping by the grocery store on the way home. While the employees don’t necessarily use the garden as a social outlet or place for meetings (as Woodhouse-Keese points out, it gets hot in the summer), its existence lets everyone fit gardening into their lives in a way that might not otherwise be possible given how busy employees at small businesses tend to be.

IN MY NEXT LIFE LET ME BE A TOMATO lusting and unafraid. In this bipedal incarnation I have always been scared of my own ripening, mother standing outside the fitting room door. I only become bright after Bloody Mary’s, only whole in New Jersey summers where beefsteaks, like baubles, sag in the yard, where we pass down heirlooms in thin paper envelopes and I tend barefoot to a garden that snakes with desire, unashamed to coil and spread. Cherry Falls, Brandywine, Sweet Aperitif, I kneel with a spool, staking and tying, checking each morning after last night’s thunderstorm only to find more sprawl, the tomatoes have no fear of wind and water, they gain power from the lightning, while I, in this version of life, retreat in bed to wither. In this life, rabbits are afraid of my clumsy gait. In the next, let them come willingly to nibble my lowest limbs, my outstretched arm always offering something sweet. I want to return from reincarnation’s spin covered in dirt and buds. I want to be unabashed, audacious, to gobble space, to blush deeper each day in the sun, knowing I’ll end up in an eager mouth. An overly ripe tomato will begin sprouting, so excited it is for more life, so intent to be part of this world, trellising wildly. For every time in this life I have thought of dying, let me yield that much fruit in my next, skeleton drooping under the weight of my own vivacity as I spread to take more of this air, this fencepost, this forgiving light.

I mentally scoured the contents of my fridge. “Probably a grilled cheese? With fresh tomato and basil in it?” She arched an eyebrow. “Fresh tomato and basil?” “I have a garden.” “I don’t do one-night stands.” I laughed. “Well, that escalated quickly.

Stella daydreamed about Continental delicatessen stores and the scent of ripe tomatoes. She and Michael had liked to go to Covent Garden and Billingsgate together, to Fortnum & Mason, and to the little foreign grocers' shops around Golders Green, Soho and Camden Town. She'd loved to see the sacks of pistachio nuts and the jars of crystallized ginger, the bottles of orange-flower water and distillations of rose petals, suggestive of the flavors of dishes from The Arabian Nights, the barrels of pickled herrings and the sides of salt beef. Together they enjoyed talking about what they might do with the star anise and the brined green peppercorns, the tarragon vinegar and the bottled bilberries. People had sometimes given Stella questioning looks when she took her sketchpad to the markets, but there was a pleasure in trying to capture the textures of the piled oranges and peaches and the glimmer of mackerel scales.

She paused, taking in the display of scarlet pelargoniums, the topiary lion painstakingly created by Hoskins, the head gardener, and the tall monkey-puzzle tree that her father had planted on the occasion of her birth twenty-five years before. She noticed bees flitting from bloom to bloom, filling the air with the sound of their low hum, and over that the bright squawks of a pair of choughs. In the distance, the kitchen garden beckoned, sunlight reflecting off the panes of the glasshouse, where pineapples and tomatoes grew in the forced tropical heat.

I ripped off fresh mint leaves for tea, dill to stuff inside whole fish, flat-leaf parsley and sprigs of thyme for my braised beef, cilantro for my chicken tagine. In the spring, I waited patiently for slim blades of chive to appear for my swordfish tartare. In the summer, I bought bunches of purple basil for a tomato salad.

Every day I, Marilyn, lie on the sofa in our living room and look out through the floor-to- ceiling windows at the oaks and evergreens that live on our property. It is now springtime, and I have watched green leaves reappear on our magnificent valley oak. Earlier today I saw an owl perch on the spruce between the front of our house and Irv’s office. I can see a bit of the vegetable garden that our son Reid planted with tomatoes, green beans, cucumbers, and squash. He wants me to think about vegetables ripening in the summer, when I will presumably “be better.

At the house in Montclair, Daisy's mother had a quarter-acre patch in the backyard where she grew vegetables and flowers. From spring through summer and into the early fall, that was where she spent most of her free time, tilling the soil, planting and weeding and watering, hand-pollinating eggplants with a tiny paintbrush, or sprinkling ground-up bone meal on her roses and zinnias, to keep the ants away. Daisy would help her to put up the vegetables she'd harvested, turning cucumbers into pickles and tomatoes into marinara sauce.

After much conversation, the tomato plant finally understood that it might not be beautiful, but it can satisfy a hungry palette with its rich flavor. And the rose bush understood that it cannot feed the stomach, but it can fill the senses with its lavish beauty and sweet scents. And from that point forward neither had the desire to be the other, for they understood that such a foolish action would have caused them to lose the marvelous ability to complement the other.

God can have His roses. The tomato gardeners remain defiant.

The wedding ring miracle was a once-in-a-lifetime experience. We will get to witness some of those, but most of our lives are made up of the small, everyday miracles. Answered prayers, yes, but also the miracle of a tomato that grows in our garden, the miracle of our kids laughing together, of a child learning a new concept, of connecting with our husbands; the miracle of feeling known through a conversation with a friend, of the comfort of a hug, the encouragement of a handwritten note, air-conditioning! If we choose to see life through the lens of faith and thankfulness, we will see the everyday miracles.

Jerusalem Artichoke (Helianthus tuberosus) In Italy these are called girasole, meaning “turn with the sun.” They really are a type of sunflower and should not be confused with the globe artichoke, which is an entirely different plant. Jerusalem artichokes, a native Amerian plant, were known to and used by the Indians. They are a good companion to corn. The tuber is the edible portion, for this sunflower has its surprise at the bottom, the flowers being attractive but not large. The principal food content of the Jerusalem artichoke is inulin, a tasteless, white polysaccharide dissolved in the sap of the roots, which can be converted into levulose sugar. This is of special interest to diabetics, for levulose is highly nutritious and the sweetest of all known natural sugars. Levulose also occurs in most fruits, in the company of dextrose, which diabetics must avoid, but in the Jerusalem artichoke it is present alone. The artichokes are high in food value and rich in vitamins. They may be cooked or eaten raw in salads.

Red Wine Vinaigrette Makes about 1/2 cup 1 tablespoon finely diced shallot 2 tablespoons red wine vinegar 6 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil Salt Freshly ground black pepper In a small bowl or jar, let the shallot sit in the vinegar for 15 minutes to macerate (see page 118), then add the olive oil, a generous pinch of salt, and a small pinch of pepper. Stir or shake to combine, then taste with a leaf of lettuce and adjust salt and acid as needed. Cover and refrigerate leftovers for up to 3 days. Ideal for garden lettuces, arugula, chicories, Belgian endive, Little Gem and romaine lettuce, beets, tomatoes, blanched, grilled, or roasted vegetables of any kind, and for Bright Cabbage Slaw, Fattoush, Grain or Bean Salad, Greek Salad, Spring Panzanella.

Blessing of The Land (at Planting or Harvest) God of the Universe, You made the heavens and the earth, So we do not call our home merely “planet earth.” We call it your Creation, a Divine Mystery, a Gift from Your Most Blessed Hand. The world itself is your miracle. Bread and vegetables from earth are thus also from heaven. Help us to see in our daily bread your presence. Upon this garden May your stars rain down their blessed dust. May you send rain and sunshine upon our garden and us. Grant us the humility to touch the humus, That we might become more human. That we might mend our rift from your Creation, That we might then know the sacredness of the gift of life— That we might truly experience life from the hand of God. For you planted humanity in a garden, and began our resurrection in a garden. Our blessed memory and hope lie in a garden. Thanks be to God, Who made the world teeming with variety, Of things on the earth, above, the earth, and under the earth. Thanks be to God, For the many kinds of plants, trees, and fruits, We celebrate. For the centipedes, ants, and worms, For the mice, marmots, and bats, For the cucumbers, tomatoes, and peppers We rejoice, That we find ourselves eclipsed by the magnitude Of generosity and mystery. Thanks be to God.

Coming home in May, I hit the ground running. I couldn’t feel anything if I kept busy, so I became the most task-oriented person in town. The garden I planted at Samuel’s was overflowing with blooms. Gus’s class snacks were lavish Pinterest-worthy creations. My garden was incredibly tidy. All the little sprouts of weeds were targets for my suppressed emotions. Kill kill kill. I worried Jeffrey. I knew I was a shell of myself. I knew that he could see it. So I avoided him. He found me down in the garden one day. I had collected a heap of rocks that were left over from a landscaping project. Pulling them out, one by one from the back of the Rhino, I was laying a path through our large vegetable garden that would allow me easier access to our snap peas, beans, tomatoes, and cucumbers at the back of the garden. I’d pinched my hand between two large stones and blood caked my knuckles. “Talk to me," he said, hands shoved deep down in his pockets. “What are you talking about? I’m fine." I was angry. I’d wanted to talk months before. I’d wanted him to hold me in bed while I cried. I’d wanted him to not have been so difficult about getting pregnant in the first place. I’d wanted him not to disappear to go chop wood and then get resentful that I was doing the exact same thing. What’s good for the goose, right? I’d wanted him to know I was angry and then apologize. And these mantras of anger had been running around in my head for months. But then — “I’m sorry," he said. Jeffrey had finally seen me. We talked about our grief. We talked about how we both left like failures. We talked about how lonely we were. Suddenly, standing there with his hands in his pockets, Jeffrey was a different person. He was incredibly vulnerable. He talked to me about how much he valued me and that this was him home and that was worth any fight. And as we talked, he started helping me. He stood and went to get a whole bunch of rocks, laying pathways through the garden for me. Each path was a manifestation of what he was saying. We worked on this garden together.

Every gardener I know is a junkie for the experience of being out there in the mud and fresh green growth. Why? An astute therapist might diagnose us as codependent and sign us up for Tomato-Anon meetings. We love our gardens so much it hurts. For their sake we’ll bend over till our backs ache, yanking out fistfuls of quackgrass by the roots as if we are tearing out the hair of the world. We lead our favorite hoe like a dance partner down one long row and up the next, in a dance marathon that leaves us exhausted

Thomas Jefferson JOB: Given a choice, he once said, he would have rather been a gardener than president. He imported plants from other countries to study them, and while conventional wisdom of the time said tomatoes were poisonous, he grew and ate them for dinner. He was also an inventor and was responsible for the development of the dumbwaiter, the lazy Susan, an automatic closing door the design of which is still—fundamentally—in use on buses today, the revolving chair, the folding chair, and a machine that enabled him to make a duplicate copy of a letter as he wrote it. He was also an inventive chef and created both Baked Alaska and Chicken à la King (which George Washington loved!).

The sun descends as I make my way into the forest, sapphire hues painting the night like a jewel. Lanterns flicker in the distance, guiding me forward. The spread Amelia has set up is illuminated by tall magenta candles bathing the table with a rosy glow. In the center, there's a tiered cake with vanilla frosting, decorated with pink pansies, marigolds, and violets. Beside it is a summer salad with juicy peaches, soft cheese, and pitted cherries--- a perfect pairing to the bruschetta topped with diced tomatoes. Different fruits are scattered across the table, sliced open to show off their vibrant innards--- blood oranges, figs, and plums. Everyone is dressed in white with bright flowers crowning their heads. Carmella pours sangria into crystal cups while Yvette helps Amelia string more lights in the trees. Roisin is seated beside Serena, adding tiny braids into her hair and placing daisies between the plaits.

The dining room has been transformed into a fairy garden this evening. Flowers are strewn across the long table--- magnolias, anemones, and roses--- paired with hydrangea-and-peony centerpieces. Long taper candles flicker over the display, complemented by the remaining sunlight. A feast sprawls out from one end of the table to the other, a medley of some of my favorites--- crab cioppino with bright tomatoes and red wine, garlic bread flecked with parsley, linguine and clams swimming in broth, seared abalone presented in its opalescent shell, fresh oysters on a bed of ice.

He drizzles some Saba oil onto the crust of his signature pie, which he makes with this incredible strawberry sofrito sauce: a savory mix of garden-grown strawberries and San Marzano tomatoes, balsamic vinegar, onions, and pine nuts. He marinates the sauce for hours until it comes out tasting like the juiciest, richest, tangiest tomato sauce you’ve ever had.

The non-hybrids/heirlooms I grew equaled or out-yielded the hybrids in general, with far superior flavors and variety.

The definitive guide for beginning one’s own exciting tomato odyssey. —Chef Claud Mann, host of Dinner & a Movie on TBS (from the Foreword) It’s been over twenty years since the infancy of Tomatomania. Scott and I have worked hard to continue the excitement each year providing seedling starts, conducting educational lectures and Tomato Tastings. This continued energy has made Scott and Tomatomania the talk of the town. The hundreds of tomato varieties Tomatomania provides creates a hysteria among gardeners who can’t wait for Tomatomania events to open near their homes. As one of their original suppliers I learned and watched this hysteria grow to where it currently is today. The responses that Tomatomania received during the plant sale demanded multiple deliveries of fresh seedlings each day. —Steve Goto, expert tomato nurseryman, consultant, and lecturer Fruit geeks and tomatomaniacs rejoice! This lovely book has managed to capture the excitement, passion and deep understanding of all things tomato in its pages, going well beyond the 'how-to’ and into 'hell-yeah!' territory. For those of us who have held close the special tradition of springtime Tomatomania outings across California, we can now share their joy and subsequent bounty in all their glory. —Rick Nahmias, founder/executive director, Food Forward

When Daddy's garden is ready it is filled with words that make me laugh when I say them- pole beans and tomatoes, okra and corn sweet peas and sugar snaps, lettuce and squash. Who could have imagined so much color that the ground disappears and we are left walking through an autumn's worth or crazy words that beneath the magic of my grandmother's hands become side dishes.

Many Union soldiers had money, and since 45,000 prisoners moved through Andersonville in the span of about 14 months, there was actually a free market among the prisoners. Since rations, clothing, and shelter were substandard, many shopkeepers and merchants set up shop inside the stockade and sold fresh vegetables of every kind. Thorp recounted this market: “The authorities at Andersonville allowed supplies to be sold to the prisoners for Federal money. Numerous small restaurants flourished in the stockade. From small clay ovens they supplied fresh bread and baked meats. Irish and sweet potatoes, string beans, peas, tomatoes, melons, sweet corn, and other garden products were abundantly offered for sale. New arrivals were amazed to find these resources in the midst of utter destitution and starvation

WE LEAVE THE DORM, and Ethan shows us the gym, where he proudly informs us that in one month he’s already doubled the weight he can curl, then the community room, which has an enormous flat-screen TV and a bunch of pinball and video games, then the computer room, and then his little corner patch of their big community garden, where he’s growing lettuce and beets. “But you don’t eat vegetables,” David says. “Sammy says food tastes better when you grow it yourself.” “It’s true,” I say. David rolls his eyes and makes a snorting sound. “It is,” I insist. “I once had a tomato plant, and I hate tomatoes, but I ate the one little tomato I succeeded in growing, and it was delicious. Then the plant died.” “I didn’t want to grow tomatoes,” Ethan says. “I don’t blame you. It only leads to heartbreak.

Through the years I experimented with all different types of materials and frames. Finally, I settled upon one that was so simple, easy, and inexpensive to use that it was almost ridiculous. Then I began growing all different types of plants vertically. I originally thought I would need to design some special way to hold up and accommodate heavier fruits such as winter squash and pumpkins, but as it turned out, these plant vines seemed to understand the situation; the stem supporting the heavy fruit grows thicker and heavier as the fruit becomes larger. If you have a framework and support that will hold the plant, the plant will hold the fruit; it is as simple as that! Mother Nature always seems to know best. Pea and bean netting can be stretched taut across a box frame and held in place by four metal posts. Plants will then grow up through the netting and be supported. Best Material I use the strongest material I can find, which is steel. Fortunately, steel comes in tubular pipe used for electrical conduit. It is very strong and turns out to be very inexpensive. Couplings are also available so you can connect two pieces together. I designed an attractive frame that fits right onto the 4 × 4 box, and it can be attached to the wooden box with clamps that can be bought at any store. Or, steel reinforcing rods driven into the existing ground outside your box provide a very steady and strong base; then the electrical conduit slips snugly over the bars. It’s very simple and inexpensive to assemble. Anyone can do it—even you! To prevent vertically grown plants from shading other parts of the garden, I recommend that tall, vertical frames be constructed on the north side of the garden. To fit it into a 4 × 4 box, I designed a frame that measured 4 feet wide and almost 6 feet tall. Tie It Tight Vertically growing plants need to be tied to their supports. Nylon netting won’t rot in the sun and weather, and I use it exclusively now for both vertical frames and horizontal plant supports. It is very strong—almost unbreakable—and guaranteed for twenty years. It is a wonderful material available at garden stores and in catalogs. The nylon netting is also durable enough to grow the heavier vine crops on vertical frames, including watermelons, pumpkins, cantaloupes, winter and summer squashes, and tomatoes. You will see in Chapter 8 how easy it is to train plants to grow vertically. To hold the plants to the frame, I have found that nylon netting with 7-inch square openings made especially for tomato growing works well because you can reach your hand through. Make sure it is this type so it won’t cut the stem of the plant when it blows against it in the wind. This comes in 4-foot widths and can easily be tied to the metal frame. It’s sometimes hard to find, so call around.

Madame Escoffier," he said. In his white apron, he was again the man she loved. The gentle man who only spoke in whispers. "I am sorry," she said. "I am not." He leaned over and kissed her. His lips tasted of tomatoes, sharp and floral. The moment, filled with the heat of a reckless summer, brought her back to the gardens they had grown together in Paris in a private courtyard behind Le Petit Moulin Rouge. Sweet Roma tomatoes, grassy licorice tarragon, thin purple eggplants and small crisp beans thrived in a series of old wine barrels that sat in the tiny square. There were also violets and roses that the 'confiseur' would make into jellies or sugar to grace the top of the 'petit-fours glacés,' which were baked every evening while the coal of the brick ovens cooled down for the night. "No one grows vegetables in the city of Paris," she said, laughing, when Escoffier first showed her his hidden garden, "except for Escoffier." He picked a ripe tomato, bit into it and then held it to her lips. "Pomme d'amour, perhaps this was fruit of Eden." The tomato was so ripe and lush, so filled with heat it brought tears to her eyes and he kissed her. "You are becoming very good at being a chef's wife." "I love you," she said and finally meant it. 'Pommes d'amour.' The kitchen was now overflowing with them.

The scents bring us back. That’s what Mr. Agrawal says. He says the scents of summer are the most potent, the most enduring. The sun beats hard in Duxton, Massachusetts, in late July. It shrivels soft things: flower petals, the worms that struggle up through the ground after a midday shower. The sun here cares nothing for exteriors. It is interested only in essences, the soft middles. Mr. Agrawal doesn’t bother to pick the ripening tomatoes in the garden, infested with rangy weeds and fat iridescent beetles. He says he likes the smell of the flesh once the heat has sizzled the peel. --from "Wayward," a short story by Chandra Prasad in MIXED: An Anthology of Short Fiction on the Multiracial Experience

The marrow’s the really hot competition, of course, but the tallest sunflower, the tomatoes, runner beans and asparagus are also war zones. The year before last there was a big scandal over alleged cheating in the gooseberry section.

The one thing that hasn't changed around our house is our having a groundhog. Strange how he stayed on after Doc died since Mama and I have up growing vegetables. He just lives off grass these days, which makes me wonder why he had to bedevil poor Doc so much over his corn and tomatoes. I guess Doc's garden was just too tempting, like dangling a candy bar in front of a child. Of course, I don't know for sure that it's Big Tom, the GD groundhog himself, or just one of his children. But this groundhog sure is big and bodacious. And, you know, he does the funniest thing at twilight. He waddles out to the rose garden and lies down there, almost like he's looking for Doc. Maybe his is. I guess groundhogs don't know about flying south.