Seeds of Change

"Change is inevitable - except from a vending machine" ~ Robert C. Gallagher

The seeds for our garden arrived from the states a couple of weeks ago. So, now that we have them, what do we do with them? When do we plant them? Will they get enough sun? Enough rain? And the big question is, will I kill them? Or can these be seeds of change? After all change is sweeping all of North Africa.



After researching on-line and coming up with nothing definitive on when is the right time to plant in Morocco. Then I read the seed packet which merely says to plant after the last frost. And of course Morocco has no frost. So, I need a consultant. So, I asked my sister who has been a successful gardener for years. When do I plant and how do I proceed? After going through an extensive check-list of Morocco's current weather conditions: no frost, lots of rain and lots of sun, which took all of 30 seconds, it was confirmed. The time to plant is now. And basically you just stick them in the ground. Really, that seems too easy?



So we got out the garden tools and the kids removed and re-housed the compost. That's when the discovery was made. Some composted carrots, potatoes and onions had started to sprout and take root. Jade delicately unearthed them with the care of an archeologist digging up artifacts. She created the kids compost garden and replanted the new shoots there directly opposite of the world's most gigantic rosemary bush. We didn't even plant anything yet and we have things growing in our garden.



When we did pull out the seeds that we bought we realized that maybe, just maybe we were a bit overambitious and lettuce crazed when we ordered. We have encore lettuce mix (consisting of 8 different varieties of exotic lettuces I have never heard of before), spinach, arugula, two types of romaine, asparagus, cherry tomatoes, pumpkins, watermelon, cantaloupes and strawberries. And when I tallied the number of seeds we have it's nearly 3500 seeds. Based on the law of probability, something has to grow. Right? Of course there is Murphy's law too.



Our dirt is a rich moist espresso brown and filled with worms. If this garden thing doesn't work out we could just start a zoo of creepy crawly critters. We section the garden into grids and scatter the seeds within the imaginary boxes. This probably isn't how they plant things on HGTV, but it was efficient. Maybe we should have said a garden prayer or something. But I wouldn't be sure if we should pray for the seeds to grow, for my kids to eat what does grow or for what to do with the leftover seeds. Probably all three in one big combo platter prayer.




It's been a week since we planted the garden and I think these seeds of change have already cast their magical spell. Just yesterday, River, our pickiest non-vegetable eating son, had 4 servings of salad...voluntarily. And when he was done and reclined in his chair at the dinner table patted his belly he proclaimed he loves salad. How I have dreamed of this day! This is nothing short of a miracle! Oh my god, these are magic seeds! How many do I have left? And how can we best use their magical powers?



We could start a salad co-op. We could have salad tastings and dressing makings. Caesar, Greek, Caprese, Nicoise, Cobb. But, we could do all those things with regular seeds though. Look at the signs. We have a virgin turtle named Mutha Mary who lives in our yard with her miracle babies of course. We have the world's largest rosemary bush. Hmmmm....I wonder if it's flammable. Cause if the bush starts burning I think I know what we need to do. We need to export these seeds to Egypt! Cause who needs miracle seeds of change more than Egypt right now? That is unless Morocco starts sowing the seeds of change too...



To be continued...