06.30.2025 | Ordinary Monday

A humid, cloudy morning here in the Carondelet Garden.  We should see cloudy skies with afternoon showers or thunderstorms.  Storms may contain strong gusty winds.  The high should read the low 90s with winds out of the WNW at 5 to 10 MPH.  
​
Here in the Carondelet Garden, it’s glorious tomato season.

The heirlooms are beginning to blush, and the patio tomatoes have gifted us a bountiful harvest. For this old gardener, it’s one of the sweetest times of the year.
 
Tomato plants hold one of my favorite scents in the world. One whiff, and the memories rise. They smell like home. Everyone, it seems, has a story about tomatoes. They’re plants of family, of tradition, of secrets passed down like recipes whispered in steamy kitchens. Tomato stories are told with that far-off gaze, eyes soft-focused on something treasured in the past.
 
Growing tomatoes is a way of welcoming summer. What they crave is sun and heat—and they remember it, somehow, deep in their cells. Tomatoes love to bake in the sunlight, to soak in the warmth and release that nostalgic, green-fingered perfume. It’s in that alchemy of heat and scent that they turn radiant and red, offering up their sun-ripened fruit like a memory made edible.
 
In the quiet tending of tomato vines, I’m reminded that growth isn’t always flashy. It happens slowly, often hidden—nourished by warmth, patience, and care. Like the fruit ripening under summer’s watchful gaze, the spirit, too, ripens in its own time.
 
We don’t rush the tomato. We trust the process, the sun, the soil, the sacred wait. Maybe there’s a holy invitation in that: to let us ripen, not on the world’s timeline, but on the soul’s. To become ready in due season.
 
“Let us not grow weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.”
— Galatians 6:9 (NIV)
 
Here’s to warm fruit, weathered hands, and the grace of slow ripening.