A Basket of Tomatoes from A Neighbor
Dear Friend,
I never knew there could be a fall harvest of tomatoes. Did you?
Well, maybe it isn’t officially fall yet, but for some reason the tomatoes are still thriving. Apparently, the oppressive August humidity did not manage to kill them all.
A neighbor popped over yesterday. In her arms was an honest-to-goodness basket—not the cheap kind, but a handmade one, woven of real grass. It was full of tomatoes, some still green, some perfectly ripe and red. She climbed the porch and set the basket down between us, calling out a big Southern “Hey.” Then she introduced herself and pointed toward her house, only a few doors down.
The small talk gave way to something more interesting when she started telling me about her garden.
She is from the northeast, where she was a proficient gardener. But when she moved to the island, the humidity was different, and so was the soil. Nothing she planted was thriving, and she grew really frustrated.
One day she was strolling through the farmers market and came upon a table laden with an abundance of the very things she had been trying to grow. So she asked the older lady behind the table how she’d done it.
Here is my favorite part. Before the vendor offered a single tip or trick, she reached under her table, pulled out a whole pomegranate, and handed it to my neighbor. In a raspy drawl, she told my neighbor that before she tried her hand at zucchini, she needed to learn to grow the “Lord’s fruit.”
I had never heard that expression before, and neither had my neighbor at that time.
My neighbor and this green-thumbed genius talked for a while after that. The woman showed her how to crack open the pomegranate, prep the seeds, and plant them. Then she suggested that, in addition to the pomegranate, the only other thing my neighbor should start with was tomatoes. Newly armed with her pomegranate and information she was sure would allow her to see at least a few tomatoes for her salad, she ran right home and got to work.
My neighbor now shares her tomatoes with the whole neighborhood, and a few local restaurants.
I keep turning that pomegranate over in my mind. The woman could have started with instructions: the soil, the sunlight, when to water, nutrients.
Instead, she started with something to hold. Something that required a different kind of attention and time. The gift came first, the help for all those future harvests followed, and none of it felt like a lesson.
And look how far it traveled. A pomegranate under a table at the farmers market became a garden a few doors down. The garden became a basket. The basket came up my porch steps.
It seems to me that abundance was never meant to stay where it grew. It is meant to be carried a few doors down.
Who handed you a pomegranate, something small and freely given, before they ever offered you the next steps, and what has trickled from it to bless others?
Until next time,
—A Friend from Magnolia Isle
