The Vulnerability of Starting Seeds

Hello flower friend,

When I first started gardening, starting seeds was an exciting science experiment. My first year, I started seeds in a sunny window, in dirt I’d dug out of our yard. I was astonished when the sprouts grew too tall, and one day just flopped over dead. I remember texting my sister, a more accomplished gardener, and asking what had happened. Now I know they were leggy from lack of light, and then succumbed to “dampening off,” which is a sudden death from a fungal disease, surely from my naive choice of using dirt I’d dug out of the yard! It seems so embarrassing looking back, but at the time it was a great science lesson, and I enjoyed learning from my mistakes. It was all exciting.

Uhoh.

Another good science “lesson” back in 2020.

My first seeds after my sister died of cancer two years later, were less exciting. She died in November, and I went ahead with my vegetable and flower seed starting in March. It all suddenly seemed less like a fun science experiment. It seemed so bizarre, so silly, so utterly naive, to expect that these seeds that came from a dead plant would really come to life. By giving them the right conditions, I could control their passage from death to life. But damn it, why couldn’t I do that with my sister? Starting seeds seemed at the same time too good to be true, and too ironic to bear. 

With each passing season, the pain lessens but the thoughts are always there. There is an incredible vulnerability with starting seeds. We provide the conditions, but something far beyond us coaxes them from death to life. With time I began to see the beauty, the hope, the redemption that Our Creator offers us in the science of seeds. No right conditions can bring our loved ones back from death, but like a little peek through the keyhole of the universe, we can watch something dead come to life again when we plant seeds. 

If you’re not able to plant seeds, you can still participate in this miracle just by being more mindful of the ways you see winter swelling into the buds of spring. Every year we are given this gift of seeing death reverse. It is our choice if this gives us anger or hope. This year, I choose Hope. Whenever I sow a seed now, I remember my sister, and I am thankful.

Until next time.

Your flower farmer.

Meredith