Palm Branches Metamorphose into a Spring Garden Blessing

by Reba Berge, Tastemaker in Residence

A beautiful tradition began years ago, when the Karhoff children came home with their Sunday school palm branches. Their mother gracefully snipped the bottom of each branch and put them in a vase of water to make them last throughout the days leading up to Easter.

An Easter celebration would come and go, and the palm branches were dried in the family’s basement. Once they were dried, she would gather them and purposefully burn them to ashes. She would then scatter the ashes on the family’s back yard garden as a spring garden blessing for the seeds that were planted. These seeds soon grew and produced food to feed her family. This tradition continues now, three generations later, with the palm branches of my nieces and nephews and their Grandpa Karhoff.

Easter Blessings and Spring Garden Blessings to you all this Palm Sunday. (Palm Sunday is April 14th)