The Discipline of Planting Seeds

(I wrote this last year but it suits for this one too, though the cast of characters is a little different: fewer and later planted peas, less bok choi, added broccoli.)

A Colorful Library of Life

Early May 2010

Saturday at the market and I am buying only eggs and a sweet roll, two things we don’t make ourselves.  I see lots of spring lettuce today, plus bok choi, radishes, herbs, and spring onions, but I’m growing all of that myself so I don’t buy any.  Jones is full of perfect heads of sweet, red, leaf lettuce, buttery-smooth, green, bib lettuce, crisp, light green head lettuce, and several dozen radishes, their bright red bulbs peeking above the top of the soil, beckoning me to grab their green tops and pull them up.  I’ve got green onions, too.  I don’t see peas for sale, but I wouldn’t buy those either, knowing my lush scores of pea plants are rocketing skyward, preparing to set and bear pods upon pods of those sweet, green pearls.

I’m also seeing many flats of bedding plants, tomatoes, peppers, eggplants and an assortment of flowers.  I’m also growing all of that.  Instead of spending three dollars for a plant or maybe $4 – $5 for six annual flowers or ready grown vegetables, I spent $2 to $3 for packets of seed and now have a flat of a dozen tomatoes ready to plant, 20 pepper plants (hot mix, jalapeno, and sweet) , a dozen young basil, reddish, big leaved and small, 30 marigold seedlings (from last year’s seed) and 15 nasturtium.  I have six dill seedlings, eight cilantro and five fennel.  I even have sweet pea plants, each seven inches tall with searching tendrils, ready to climb the trellises out front and produce fragrant, beautiful flowers for my wife.  I have packets of other seeds, cucumbers and zinnia, bachelor’s button and carrots, beans and sunflowers, strawflower and okra, all seeds I will sow directly into the ground.

My first disciplined act, therefore, was actually a non-act:  I resisted buying beautiful local produce and bedding plants because I didn’t need them.  I had already grown my own.

In mid-February when I started planting lettuce in flats, I only thought I was getting a jump on the season, which I did.  Few other gardens in either community plot have such beautiful, mature lettuce as I do.  There are no lush, perfect pea vines like mine.  By planting everything from seed, I extended the season, our produce, and my joy.  What I didn’t realize at the time were the rigors, the other disciplines that come with seeds.

Planting seeds requires open-eyed decision making based on a combination of gardening knowledge, past experience and fortune-telling.  What worked last year?  What new things do I want to try?  Do I think this particular variety will do well in my gardens’ unique conditions?  It’s a tough process since the plethora of catalogs offer many attractive, interesting items.  And even the best laid plans go awry (like my inadvertently selecting two varieties of beefsteak tomato when I could have purchased a Roma or a cherry.)   What about last year’s unused seeds?  Will they grow?  Some of my leftovers, like the crisphead lettuce, seemed to germinate at nearly 100%, but last year’s Bibb didn’t really grow at all this year.  Thankfully I bought a new packet of this, my favorite type of lettuce.

After the seeds arrive, there are many steps and points where the whole endeavor could go wrong.  Seeds, then seedlings need the right amount of moisture and warmth and light.  Too much moisture and the seedlings wither and die.  Too little light, or light at the wrong distance and the seeds will be long and leggy, not short and compact as healthy plants should be.  Then there’s transplanting the seedlings either to the ground (as I did with lettuce, spinach, cabbage and bok choi), or else to peat pots because the ground isn’t ready but the seedlings have outgrown their little cells (as I did with tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, and some basil).

I was gone for a week while the warm weather plants were still in flats under lights, so had to find a plant sitter (another rigor) to make sure they were watered and had as much light as possible.  Without the grow lights some grew leggy, but as soon as we returned, I put them back where they started growing compactly and nicely again.  I lost little because of my absence.

I guess I didn’t set out to do a rigorous thing.  Walking through the market not buying any produce because I was growing my own, I realized I had.  I took on a responsibility that added tasks and time to the gardening venture, but I’m glad I did.  Seeing the seeds sprout and grow, and actually harvesting produce from seeds I started is satisfying and fun.

About literarylee

I sling words for a living. Always have, always will. Some have been interesting and fun; most not. These days, I write the fun words early in the morning before the adults are up and make me eat my Cream of Wheat.
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