Little Seeds

Clare Schaecher

Friday, March 28, 2008 at 12:00 PM

I can't believe how small the seeds are. I know it doesn't sound very farmer-ly of me, but I just can't get over it. This tiny, black, many-edged seed is going to be an onion? If you say so. It feels like a whim to put these tiny specks into moist compost and wait for something big to happen. But we did, and now we wait. It's breathless, this waiting. We fuss around in ordinary ways -- watering, checking the temperature -- but each time we return to a tray of seeded blocks, we're on the figurative edge of our seats. We're watching for a sign of life, some hint at the promise given to us by the seed packet. And then it happens. The smallest sliver slipping out of a seed.

On the first night after our seeds began to germinate, I could barely sleep. When I finally managed to drift off, my dreams were filled with pale green tendrils climbing out of black earth.

It's early in the season. We don't have much else to do except worry over our seedlings. Soon transplanting and weeding and harvesting will take over and our fragile, miraculous sprouts will just become one more duty to attend to and not the whole show. This time we have to watch our seeds feels like a gift, a present in every sense of the word.

And this is the first among many times this season that we’ll pause, look around and marvel at how lucky we are.