First Seeding
I got “on the land” at Plot 32 for the first time today, unsure about the weather conditions (overcast, cold and damp) but most of all unsure about my skill. It has been years since I actually dropped a seed of any kind into soil, and as I stood at the edge of that lumpy brown patch of earth, not knowing even which direction to choose for my rows, let alone which vegetable to put where, I felt suddenly incompetent.
Not that incompetence is unfamiliar to me — it’s kind of my usual experience in most of what I do. But I am particularly embarassed to admit how little I know about vegetable gardening, since my father was a tremendously successful practitioner of the art for decades when I was growing up.
We lived in the countryside north of Bolton, Ontario, and on one of our 8 acres (I used to think it was 10) Dad annually cultivated a huge amount of vegetables: corn, potatoes, tomatoes, beets, carrots, peas, green and yellow beans, broccoli, cucumbers; all planted, weeded and harvested by his own hands. And sometimes with a little help from his kids.
But I must not have helped enough, because today I couldn’t even seem to visualize a straight line in the soil for starting a row. It seemed to me a good idea to rake it first (I think Dad would do that), to try to smooth out some of the lumpiness, but after that I was just guessing at procedures.
So I got seed into earth and covered it up; I watered where I had planted; but I have no idea whether I planted the lettuce, carrots or onions too deep or not deep enough, bunched too close together or spaced too far apart. And maybe it was too cold today anyway (around 12 Celsius and with a challenging wind) to be seeding, and so perhaps none of the tiny seeds I committed to the earth today will germinate.
But part of the allure of gardening, perhaps, is not knowing exactly what’s going to happen. It just might be that these things can grow and flourish in spite of my incompetence — wouldn’t that be a testament to the wonders of nature!
When the air and ground warm up a little more, hopefully by next weekend, I will try putting in some cucumber seed and some tomato seedlings.
I guess I will just have to wait and see what comes up.
