Enter to Win a Copy of “The Growing Season” by Tennessee Author Jane Lorenzini
Paul Barrett/Girl Friday Productions
Davidson County Farm Bureau member and New York Times bestselling author Jane Lorenzini has a new novel available for online purchase beginning May 7, 2024. The Growing Season, a follow-up to Lorenzini’s After the Rain, continues the story of 27-year-old Belle Carson, who tends the gardens of world-renowned inventor Thomas Edison on his winter estate in Florida in 1889.
Lorenzini drew inspiration for the novel from one of our very own articles in the summer 2018 edition of Tennessee Home & Farm (“You Can Can: Enjoy Farm-Fresh Veggies Year Round With the Art of Canning”), which outlines the history of canning as a method of food preservation. The article explains how canning clubs, first known as “tomato clubs” were among the earliest means of teaching home canning in America at the turn of the 20th century. Tennessean Virginia P. Moore worked with many young women at the time to create these clubs intended to improve the lives of rural women through education. Together, boys’ corn clubs and girls’ tomato clubs became the precursors to the 4-H clubs of today.
After extensive research on the subject, Lorenzini worked the movement into The Growing Season, even including Moore in the story. When a friend of the Edisons’ convinces Belle to join the tomato club movement sweeping the South, she finds that tomatoes might be key to cultivating the future she wants. But when both her tomato crop and romantic relationship begin to wither, she’s forced to dig deep in this story of hope, growth and forgiveness.
Learn more about Jane Lorenzini or purchase a copy of The Growing Season (available for pre-order now) on Amazon.
I love the Tennessee Home & Farm magazine. I joined Tenn. Farm Bureau so I could get the magazine.
My elderly parents are members of Tenn Farm Bureau. They live in Indiana but own property in Tenn. I’m finding myself at their home here more as they are needing a helping hand with daily chores. I always enjoy reading your magazine & have actually responded to a couple of articles. Thank you
Canning food seems to be making a come back. My granddaughter plants a small garden. Out if it many great salads come to be. And fresh vegetables are eaten all summer. The excess is either canned or dehydrated for winter enjoyment. Growing up in the 1950’s and 1960’s, we depended on a big garden but they later fell out of grace when both partners had to work outside the home to make ends meet. But, a small garden well thought out can feed a family. An added benefit…my 7 year old great grandson knows where food really comes from!