Spring and the Moon of Liberation

Wednesday gratefuls: Dr. Josy. Heirloom Tomato Farms. Pine. Artemis. Starting the day. Trash pickup. House cleaning. Rain.

Rene Good. Alex Pretti. Say their names.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Heirloom Tomatoes

 

Kavannah: Areyvut. Mutual responsibility.  All humans are accountable one to another.

Tarot: Nine of Stones. Tradition.    I find value in the Shema, teshuvah, tikkun, talmud Torah.

One brief shining: Set chatgpt to work on this query: I want to buy heirloom tomato plants. Can you find places? The first entry: Heirloom Tomato Farms specializes in them. Where is it? Pine, Colorado, about 20 minutes from here.

 

In Andover Kate and I grew exclusively heirloom vegetables: garlic, tomatoes, carrots. No pesticides. Careful attention to soil chemistry. Daily care.

We came to love heirloom tomatoes in particular: Brandywine, Cherokee Purple, Black Krim. These plump, heavy tomatoes– some weigh more than a pound–had a meaty interior that shamed store bought tomatoes.  What tomatoes were like before industrial farming.

It gave me pleasure to imagine a nineteenth-century gardener weeding around these same varieties. Probably in a kitchen garden on a farm. Kate and I were their hands and feet in not only a different century, but a new millennium.

I’m drawn to Heirloom Tomato Farms. In fact, I sorta want to jump in Ruby and drive over there today. Just to see their operation. Online sales begin April 12th. It’d be nice to have already developed a relationship with them before then.

Tomatoes do well in Artemis. As she proved last year. Night time warmth. Daytime temperature control by exhaust fan. I’ll have to restrain myself, not purchase more plants than I need.

I do plan to order at least two heirloom cherry tomato plants since I have all these sheetpan meals in my repertoire. We never grew them in Andover.

Soil. Hands in the soil. Seeds planted in the soil. Heirloom tomato plants. Transplanted in the soil. Water. Sun. Time. Yield: nourishment, excellent taste, abundance.

I saw a youtube video on the release of 5,000 bison on a 150,000 acre reserve of Texas panhandle scrubland. I watched twenty minutes of it, fascinated by the multiple effects a bison herd could have on that much land.

I wanted it to be true. It wasn’t. Yellowstone has a four thousand plus bison herd, by far the largest in the U.S. I don’t know why people would make such a video, but I do know this: My heart wanted it to be real.

My passion. Visionary projects. I have a list of those projects I support,* but Artemis says I’m in it, too. To plant my own seeds. Reap a local harvest. Stay in the tradition of those nineteenth-century kitchen gardens.

The Andover years put Kate and me in that tradition. With a bad back and limited stamina Artemis gives me a chance to offer an echo of them, but a real echo nonetheless.

We had a no snow winter on Shadow Mountain. My neighbors have built chicken coops and greenhouses. I’m growing heirloom vegetables. Artemis.

I have a passion for radical solutions like perennial grains; but I also have a passion for the wisdom of gardeners past, for the solutions of yesterday.

Artemis.
Hands.
In the soil.

 

*The Land Institute and its search for perennial grains. The American Prairie, creating a large, contiguous prairie restoration where, someday, bison herds might roam. Regenerative agriculture. Restoring the chinampas in Xochimilco.