Growing Hope with Christie Purifoy

“While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease.” - Genesis 8:22

These are the promising and encouraging words from God to Noah, after the world-wide flood of judgment centuries ago. And these are the first words you read when you open up Seedtime and Harvest, the newest book by author and gardener, Christie Purifoy. 

I have never met Christie but I have gotten to know her through the pages of her books. After reading her first book, Roots & Sky, on a train from West Virginia to Philly,  I continued to look forward to her next books because Christie has an honest and poetic way of sharing her heart, her life, and her passions, which I can see include her family, her faith, her community, her home, and her gardens! I was captivated by her second memoir, Placemaker, and inspired by her following three gardening books. It was perfect timing to read this winter as spring has sprung and I am itching to finally get back into the gardens after several summers of neglect because of Graduate School.

Seedtime and Harvest is Christie’s newest book from her gardening series – three in total. The first one is Garden Maker and the second is A Home in Bloom. They are the prettiest books I have run across in a long long time! 

Today, I have the honor of conversing with Christie about her books and her gardens and I simply cannot wait to meet her! I hope that by the end of our time together, we will all discover some TRUTH, GOODNESS, and BEAUTY from the practice of placemaking and gardening. 

At the end of the episode, I conclude with a little description of one of the most beautiful gardens in the world, Longwood Gardens, right here in Pennyslvania. It is spectacular and I hope you get a chance to visit it someday soon!

Christie's books:

• Roots and Sky: A Journey Home in Four Seasons
• Placemaker: Cultivating Places of Comfort, Beauty, and Peace
• Garden Maker: Growing a Life of Beauty and Wonder with Flowers
• A Home in Bloom: Four Enchanted Seasons with Flowers
• Seedtime and Harvest

 

COMMONPLACE QUOTES

 “We are so accomplished at making functional places for waiting, for passing through, and for consuming, but how do we make places able to embrace the fulness of our human selves?” - Christie Purifoy, A Home In Bloom, p. 10

“What if our homes could be places that brought us back to life? For that is what sacred places do. They restore us and renew us and resurrect our spirits.” - Christie Purifoy, A Home in Bloom, p. 10

“gardeners cultivate harmony . . . When we set out to cultivate the music of life, the song is always new, always changing, always surprising, always good. Life cannot be static, or it ceases to be life. Life is growth. And what are we growing in a garden? Whether the tangible fruit is a tomato or a rosebud, in a garden, we are growing roots. We are growing connection. We are growing wholeness. And we are growing hope.” - Christie Purifoy, Seedtime and Harvest, p. 13

. . . give a child a single valuable idea, and you have done more for his education than if you had laid upon his mind the burden of bushels of information . . . - Charlotte Mason, Volume 1: Home Education, p. 174

 

APPLICATION

1. Think of some traditions or rituals you can enjoy at home to help you see the beauty around you and help you become rooted where you are. Perhaps light a candle at meal times, set out an afternoon tea, put out a bird feeder and watch your backyard visitors flit about, or begin or end your day with prayer.
2. Go out and purchase a packet of Zinnia seeds and sprinkle them wherever you want to see some color. Look into where you can purchase different flower bulbs that you can plant to provide you with a vision of beauty and hope throughout each month of the year.
3. How can you build community with your neighbors and family this spring?