If I squeeze my eyes shut and think way, way back to when I was a little girl, I can remember the very first time I witnessed the wonder of a seed turning into a plant. I was at my grandmother’s house and she was planting the first early spring crops.
A Memory of Planting Seeds
I remember she had raked the bed smooth and then made a groove in the soil. My sister and I must have been about four years old, too young to “help” in the garden much, but that day she let us plant the seeds.
What I don’t remember is what we planted, probably radishes and the like since they were being direct sown in the spring. What I do remember is how small the seeds were even in our tiny hands.
Grandma carefully instructed us to plant a single seed every so often in the soil. Later I learned this was called spacing seeds. I’m pretty sure the “spacing” wasn’t particularly even, but I’m sure she thinned the crop later.
Despite my memory being a bit on the dim side, I clearly recall the magic of watching the seeds germinate and become little seedlings and then over time into full grown plants.
The whole process left me in awe and has stayed with me to this day. I still love to monitor the seeds every day, sometimes multiple times a day to seed how quickly they grow. There is indeed a bit of a miracle that occurs each time a seed germinates, and I’m even more thrilled when the plant fruits. It makes me aware of all the other little miracles that occur all around me.
