Every year I grow a garden from seeds. I usually start to sow the first of them in February. Some seeds need a long time in the soil before they are ready to reach for sunlight, others sprout in 24 hours. I’ve learnt a lot from growing a garden. Like, how long it takes before a plant is strong enough to bear a tomato, or a cucumber, and how little I know about how to help it, other than to give it the care that I am able to give. And how powerless I am to the elements, and the caterpillars who chomps away at my kale every year, and how I can’t bring myself to kill them, because they need food too. Or the magpies, who regularly makes a mess on my balcony when they are rummaging through the pots. For what, I don't know.
Since I live in Norway, the outdoor season is short, and sunlight is hard to come by. So from February to mid May, my small studio apartment will fill up with pots and mini greenhouses, and plantlights to make sure the seedlings get what they need until the temperature outside is stable enough for them.
Every morning I get up, I check on the plants while the first pot of coffee is brewing. I look for new sprouts, and make sure that they have had enough water, but not too much. I put on the uv light before I leave for work. And when I get home in the afternoon I look for any newcomers.
I sow new seeds regularly from February to May, because they have different needs. Some prefer to be sown directly outdoors, it’s like they prefer having to struggle a little on their own terms rather than being fussed over by yours truly. But they also need some support, and a little help, as long as I’m not too obvious about it. Instant teenagers. A few herbs are perennial, and will return from the dead, stronger and more sturdy each year. I imagine them taking in the newborns every year. I wonder if they think them ignorant for being so young and short-lived, or maybe they are just very melancholic beings, having seen so many beginnings and endings.
My balcony isn’t exactly huge, but I make the most of it. And every year, I am just in awe of the fact that the garden goes from this:
to this, in just a few weeks:
And that’s not even the peak, I’m still repotting at this point. Which is probably one of my favorite things to do. A plant will always grow down first. It will grow roots before it grows leaves. And when I gently hold a plant in my hands like this, it’s like I am holding the whole world, you know? I think of how incredible it is, the balance and the symbiosis, and how I am part of nature. There is no separation between me and this planet and everything on it. I think of how foolish we behave, telling ourselves that we are somehow special as a species, and more deserving of taking what we want from nature, disrupting and destroying a flow that we can’t even comprehend, as if we are not stealing life from ourselves in the process.
And I think this is how I pray. When I try to take care of life. When I try to help create the conditions for life to grow. In my hands this tiny strawberry-plant holds the potential to give me life as well, through the fruits I will get to eat. I try to nurture it as best as it can in return, but I also know that I’m not the one doing the hardest work here. And it doesn’t even need me to do it. If I get out of the way, if humans would just stop interfering, plants would just grow. Life would go on. Humans are not the masters of nature, we are only ever its children.
And because nature is a good mother, she has given us possibilities to learn this ourselves. She lets us in on the process, and she’s generous enough to let us make mistakes and learn from them. Or maybe, she is me, and we are made for earth, and life, to understand itself.
It takes about 6 months to grow a tomato. And they taste so good, I’m not sure if I can describe it. They taste warm, and soft, and sweet, like how sun kissed skin feels. So I eat them slowly, and just a few at a time. My favorite herb to grow is sage and basil, don’t even get me started on how they smell, because it is DIVINE, and I will lightly roast them together with a small handfull of tomatoes in the pan, and add it to pasta with parmesan, salt and black pepper, and it will be the best meal I can eat, ever. Making food is how I love. And eating the food I have grown is like the earth loving me back.
I always leave some of tomatoes and cucumbers on the plants until winter comes, so that I can harvest their seeds. I keep them on my kitchen counter after that for months some times, and they don’t go off like vegetables you buy in a grocery store. They will just dry up.
After the seeds have been left to soak up as much life as it can from the safety of the mother plant, I will rinse them out, germinate them for a few days in water, before I dry them to store in one of my boxes of seeds. And come February the year after, I will sow them, and life will go on. Making the newcomer sprouts not newcomers at all.
On a piece of paper I took from a photo album that belonged to my grandparents, I wrote, I’ll grow you a garden. I didn’t write it to anyone in particular at the time, and I’m not sure where the line came from at the time, but it was - and still is - the deepest form of love and commitment I can promise to anyone. To myself, and to another.
I sowed the first seeds of the season just a few days ago. And for the next six months I will try my best to take care of the tomatos and the sage and the basil, and all the other seeds I am sowing. And I will appreciate the garden teaching me patience, hope, gratitude, and acceptance. Because I can’t make the garden grow on my own. Actually, the more I think about it, I think maybe the garden is growing me.
Beautifully written!