Wednesday, April 18, 2012

Waiting for Seedlings

It always feels a little bit foolish to put seeds directly into the ground.  Even though I know it takes a week or two for the little seedlings to germinate, along day five I start scrutinizing the ground to see if anything is coming up.  On my home from work, there is a house with a garden. Their rows are always so straight, their ground so level - and they seem to put in seedlings rather than direct seeding.  I admire that garden. 

My garden, however, is on a slight incline.  My rows are not neat and straight, because I do everything by hand (digging rather than tilling, etc) and I direct seed, so I have only a vague idea whether I got the seeds in a straight line.  I am kind of a toss it in and hope it grows kind of gardener - at least in the outside garden.  The containers in the greenhouse kind of keep me a bit more organized in the "inside" garden.

All gardening is an act of faith.  I guess that is why so many of the parables in the Bible are agricultural in nature.  You have to have faith (or, I do, living in a rainforest) that there will be enough sun, enough, but not too much rain, that the chickens won't eat the seeds, that the all the conditions are right for seeds to germinate, to grow, and to produce.  I will be finishing my Spring act of faith this weekend when I dig up the second half of the garden and plant more cabbage, roots, and leaves. 

4 comments:

Barry said...

You might try a very old gardener's "secret" of pretreating the seeds with a soak of diluted hydrogen peroxide [ 1-2 tsp of 3% H2O2 in a cup of water, or about 1 oz. in a quart] for a few hours or perhaps overnight. It has been said to improve the germination time and percent sprouted. I also have had pretty good luck with a 50/50 blend of the 3% peroxide in water, applying it as a light spray to treat for damping-off fungus.
I too eschew the arrow-straight rows, instead going for clumps and patches of various crops, or mixing fast and slow growers, like radishes and carrots, da kine. And - always drop a marigold seed here and there, or nasturtiums, for the color, if nothing else.

Faith said...

I wait and wait. Then I get busy and ~~ voila! Except I succumbed to planting some basil seeds and was so happy to see the sprouts and know I'd have at least one herb in this temporary home of ours. I went to admire them today and they are gone. GONE! I don't know what this world is coming to.

NancyDe said...

You know me, Faith - even when I am busy, there is still a part of my mind fretting. What can I say. Some little green leaves are up today! I am sorry about your basil? I wonder what happened?

NancyDe said...

BTW, Faith - it's great to see you online - I have missed you!!!