Bread and Tomatoes is a journal of my gardening and bread baking, meant to keep track for my own purposes and to feed my endless interest in talking gardens, specifically vegetable gardens, specifically those grown in zone 4 or colder. (Garden blogs/IGs that don't cite their zone are my pet peeve - I know y'all are in California).
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| Poster by MN-based 'healer & trickster organizer'/ artist Ricardo Levins Morales |
The title leads with bread, and I do bake, but the blog leads with veggies. "Bread and tomatoes" is a nod to the slogan "we want bread, and roses too," from the labor and suffrage movements of the early 20th century. "Bread and roses" is about whole person organizing, recognizing our collective human need for Bread - dignity, fair and ample wages, the right to vote, shelter, safety - and Roses - beauty, art, culture, pleasure, play, rest, time in nature. I don't grow roses, but the time and effort I put into growing beautiful tomatoes, crinkled chard, feathered cilantro, glowing red radishes... (hang on, pulling self back from garden reverie)...that time takes work but is ultimately, for me, about pleasure.
I started this blog when I was a young-ish single adult transitioning from union organizer to community organizer on healthcare reform. Although the title was different at the time (Fieldgreens, a recombination of parts of my name) it was always about the roses side of life, and that side was always a bit in tension with my work and other responsibilities - the indulgence of carving out time for things that are extra and moreover inefficient, as are pretty much all things creative. (Around the same time and in the same spirit, I created "Sammy Sleeping," a blog exclusively of photos of my cat Sampson sleeping, "in honor of rest.") I never did anything to really make Fieldgreens visible to other people, and in the many years in which it's laid fallow I've changed jobs but stayed in movement work, plus changed houses (and gardens) and added a spouse and child to the mix - both of whom have bread and roses needs of me too.
This here is a journal of "good-enough" gardening and baking because that's all I got, and as much as I love to see all the influencers' stunning photos of their homesteads, and I do really lean on experienced folks' advice, I am most interested in advice and support and camaraderie from and to and with people who also are balancing many passions, urgent work, and love of community. There are frequently Barbies, weeds, and other chaos in the background of my photos. I apologize in advance for the poor quality of the lighting - I shoot most of my bread on the stove-top under the glaring hood light because at least it doesn't cast a me-shaped shadow. And although I'm always learning and striving to improve in the garden because I love vegetables, my notes are far from expert. Sometimes I'm happy with good-enough and sometimes I'm not, but for me blogging is to celebrate, and share and learn from what is, rather than wait for perfection. We want bread, and tomatoes too - preferably together.
Sarah
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