grace grits and gardening

ramblings from an arkansas farm girl

Amen to the Lusty Tomato

By

the lusty tomatoOne of my favorite things about summer? TOMATOES! There’s nothing like a fresh from the garden, sun-warmed, salt-sprinkled, juice-dripping-down-your-chin tomato. Can I get an Amen? When you grow your own or make a beeline for the farmers market and/or roadside fruit stand each week, you’ll soon learn the mealy, flavorless, faded-to-pink tomatoes at the grocery store are a pathetic substitute for the lusty heirloom.

A “real deal” tomato stirs up all the memories for me: eating them straight off the vine, aunts who made wonderful tomato sauce, soup, and chow chow. Momma served a big slice on every supper plate. Continue Reading

mid-June Garden Shenanigans

By

mid-June Garden Shenanigans

Since I returned from Iceland, I’ve been writing like a fiend. Between all the words, I garden. That’s pretty much it. Weeds, y’all. They are thriving. I know my garden as well as I know the manuscript I’m working on. Because when I say, I garden, what I mean is, I crawl around on my hands and knees looking between flowers, pulling weeds by hand, studying the landscape and what’s changed in my brief absence. (Much like scrubbing the lines of my writing, pulling weed words. See what I did there?) I’m here to announce there are some mid-June garden shenanigans at work in my flower beds.

For real.

It’s as though the tiny garden gnomes said, “Hey, she’s gone for two whole weeks! PAR-TEEEE.”

And they have been.Continue Reading

Blowin’ in the wuthering wind

By

Airmail snapdragons

Yesterday was breezy. But today? The wuthering wind is blowing and roaring almost as though it twists from the ground up, a reminder of how sturdy trees really are. And the flowers pictured in this post? They are the wind’s answer to spring.

I call them my airmail flowers. Airmail because these flowers were planted old school. As nature intended. Seeds were scattered by the wind, probably on a day declared TOO WINDY by moi on Facebook. Probably followed by a rainstorm that woke me during the night. Probably followed by a soggy day when Lucy and Annabelle refused to go outside.

Probably.

Mother Nature does a good job when left to her own devices.

Definitely.

Continue Reading

Food. Farm. Garden. Life.

THANKS FOR READING!