Hi all, I have featured Marisa's excellent article on tonight's edition of Planet Waves FM. It's right at the top of the program, after my introduction to Samhain. Thank you Marisa — also — if you ever have a bumper crop of tomatoes again, I will turn them into Sicilian wine sauce in a few days. I make 30 to 60 bottles a year and would be thrilled to drop a couple off the next time I am down in The Paltz.
I'm just emerging from the Samhain portal (at least it's Halloweeny portion) and returning to the digital realms.
Thank you for featuring my writing and my work so prominently! I think your note - and your post - came through while I was in the weird and wonderful crush that is the NYC parade in The Village.
And now, we return to the hearth (and the heart) and continue the Samhain dance through astronomical Samhain on Nov 7, and beyond.
I have a few comments and please know that I smiled my way through your garden tale of angst.
I planted Borage once because Deborah Madison in the GREENS COOKBOOK says it's good to use in making stock. But who knew how big it would grow? And I wasn't that fond of the taste in stock after all.
I planted a Tomatillo once, thinking it would be fun to make salsas. Who knew one plant would produce a thundering hoarde of Tomatillos?
That garden season taught me I only wanted to plant the unusual items I wanted to cook with and could not buy in a typical Farmers Market. It helped me narrow down planting choices.
Looks like you get enough late hot summer days to ripen your Tomatoes fully! Planting only your favorite tomatoes works best if you have a freezer. There are always more than you need. It's the Way of Tomatoes, Grasshopper. When you have no time and the guilt weighs heavy, the easiest is to throw them all in a pot, season them, cook them down, and use ziploc freezer bags. Most people don't have time or knowledge to can Tomatoes...yikes!!!
Oh yes. There were summers we Smoked crates of German Johnson Tomatoes on a bed of soaked Rosemary...and then finished cooking them down in a giant pot. But that's culinary curiosity and young energy with two people.
Very early my father provided me with a lesson in gardening that I never forgot. He decided to teach my older brother and me about hard work and something of agricultural economy. He planted a half a football field-size in Cucumbers. It was ours to pick and we could keep all the money from the market. Early in the morning, he dropped us off with 3 old milk gallon jugs of tap water and a stack of empty burlap sacks. I was somewhere in grade school and my brother 3 yrs older. Tiny Cucumbers brought more at 5 cents a lb. Bigger Cucumbers brought less at 2-3 cents a lb. (Long time ago...) After some time, I still remember the great dissolution of that day with my brother pelting me with dirt clogs and Cucumbers. I remember throwing my best efforts back at him. And of course I remember sometime in the hot afternoon, lying in between the rows in the dirt, crying my eyes out with misery. By the time Papa rolled up in his truck, we did have the burlap bags filled with Cucumbers. He drove us to the Market and we watched the conveyor belt carry up our Cucumbers and sort them into sizes. Together we made $15.00 for the day. I'm not sure how it was worked out, but John got $8 and I got $7.
We refused all efforts to coax us back out there for another day of learning how to work. He never found anybody else to pick Cucumbers. The field was abandoned and if you road by that field, you could see Cucumbers laying out there as big as your leg. I learned at a very early age to not grieve over a vegetable. And I learned to stay in school for years and years.
Oh my goodness, what a fabulous tangle of meaning and story, my friend! I am both saddened and comforted to know that I'm of a long line of humans who abandoned the crop!
During that first pandemic summer we joined a CSA and I was assaulted by the tomato problem. I invested DAYS in making mediocre sauce and learning you really do have to get rid of the skin. This crop essentially offers up plum tomatoes (with a prettier name) and there is NO way I am peeling all that!
Such a poignant reflection on the wasted harvests of a garden, and in life. And how Samhain is the time to let it all go, and rest in the undoing. As a beginner gardener, there was much I recognized here; as an apprentice crone, much to reflect on in terms of taking stock of where I’ve put what little energy I’ve had this year, and who/what has been neglected. Time to compost, to forgive, to surrender it all to the cauldron of the Callieach and trust that she will give me another chance come springtime…
Hi all, I have featured Marisa's excellent article on tonight's edition of Planet Waves FM. It's right at the top of the program, after my introduction to Samhain. Thank you Marisa — also — if you ever have a bumper crop of tomatoes again, I will turn them into Sicilian wine sauce in a few days. I make 30 to 60 bottles a year and would be thrilled to drop a couple off the next time I am down in The Paltz.
https://planetwavesfm.substack.com/p/planet-waves-fm-tales-from-the-other
I'm just emerging from the Samhain portal (at least it's Halloweeny portion) and returning to the digital realms.
Thank you for featuring my writing and my work so prominently! I think your note - and your post - came through while I was in the weird and wonderful crush that is the NYC parade in The Village.
And now, we return to the hearth (and the heart) and continue the Samhain dance through astronomical Samhain on Nov 7, and beyond.
I have a few comments and please know that I smiled my way through your garden tale of angst.
I planted Borage once because Deborah Madison in the GREENS COOKBOOK says it's good to use in making stock. But who knew how big it would grow? And I wasn't that fond of the taste in stock after all.
I planted a Tomatillo once, thinking it would be fun to make salsas. Who knew one plant would produce a thundering hoarde of Tomatillos?
That garden season taught me I only wanted to plant the unusual items I wanted to cook with and could not buy in a typical Farmers Market. It helped me narrow down planting choices.
Looks like you get enough late hot summer days to ripen your Tomatoes fully! Planting only your favorite tomatoes works best if you have a freezer. There are always more than you need. It's the Way of Tomatoes, Grasshopper. When you have no time and the guilt weighs heavy, the easiest is to throw them all in a pot, season them, cook them down, and use ziploc freezer bags. Most people don't have time or knowledge to can Tomatoes...yikes!!!
Oh yes. There were summers we Smoked crates of German Johnson Tomatoes on a bed of soaked Rosemary...and then finished cooking them down in a giant pot. But that's culinary curiosity and young energy with two people.
Very early my father provided me with a lesson in gardening that I never forgot. He decided to teach my older brother and me about hard work and something of agricultural economy. He planted a half a football field-size in Cucumbers. It was ours to pick and we could keep all the money from the market. Early in the morning, he dropped us off with 3 old milk gallon jugs of tap water and a stack of empty burlap sacks. I was somewhere in grade school and my brother 3 yrs older. Tiny Cucumbers brought more at 5 cents a lb. Bigger Cucumbers brought less at 2-3 cents a lb. (Long time ago...) After some time, I still remember the great dissolution of that day with my brother pelting me with dirt clogs and Cucumbers. I remember throwing my best efforts back at him. And of course I remember sometime in the hot afternoon, lying in between the rows in the dirt, crying my eyes out with misery. By the time Papa rolled up in his truck, we did have the burlap bags filled with Cucumbers. He drove us to the Market and we watched the conveyor belt carry up our Cucumbers and sort them into sizes. Together we made $15.00 for the day. I'm not sure how it was worked out, but John got $8 and I got $7.
We refused all efforts to coax us back out there for another day of learning how to work. He never found anybody else to pick Cucumbers. The field was abandoned and if you road by that field, you could see Cucumbers laying out there as big as your leg. I learned at a very early age to not grieve over a vegetable. And I learned to stay in school for years and years.
Diana
Oh my goodness, what a fabulous tangle of meaning and story, my friend! I am both saddened and comforted to know that I'm of a long line of humans who abandoned the crop!
During that first pandemic summer we joined a CSA and I was assaulted by the tomato problem. I invested DAYS in making mediocre sauce and learning you really do have to get rid of the skin. This crop essentially offers up plum tomatoes (with a prettier name) and there is NO way I am peeling all that!
Such a poignant reflection on the wasted harvests of a garden, and in life. And how Samhain is the time to let it all go, and rest in the undoing. As a beginner gardener, there was much I recognized here; as an apprentice crone, much to reflect on in terms of taking stock of where I’ve put what little energy I’ve had this year, and who/what has been neglected. Time to compost, to forgive, to surrender it all to the cauldron of the Callieach and trust that she will give me another chance come springtime…
Ah, thank you, Jody, for receiving and offering your own sense of recognition of this strange and beautiful time - in the year, and in the lifetime.
You are so very welcome Marissa xx
Beautiful reflection!
Thank you, dear Julie. I've been holding you and your Samhain passage and the letting go of The Meadow in my heart.
Thank you! Only letting go of this current iteration of The Meadow.
The Meadow will continue to flourish in new forms—but for now allowing for this fallow period.
Yes, I love that this is a letting go of one form of the dream and a deepening into all that possible in the seasons to come. 💚