Over the last weekend in April I was mostly mowing grass in the orchard and “upstairs field” and playing chainsaws. In fact I’m not really sure where the time went, but I did manage to do a bit of planting too — more peas, beetroot, carrots and salad veg. My daughter and I also set up canes for the french beans to climb up once they get planted outside.
A quick check over the plot showed up one potato plant that has broken the surface, lots of beetroot and carrots from my first planting, spring onions are starting to emerge as well, with that “bent over” stalk thing they do. In the greenhouse we had six butternut squashes that had germinated and I potted on the courgettes and melons from the propagator. I also potted on my initial sowing of chiles. I ended up with thirty-two plants in all which is far more than I need, but makes me happy as a programmer because it’s a power of two 🙂
My daughter doesn’t seem to get why I’m so fascinated by seeing things start to grow in the veg plot when “it happens around us all the time”. But that’s precisely one of the reasons that it is so amazing. Life gets created from insignificant little bits of stuff, not just now and then, but all over the place, all the time. That’s not astonishing? I showed her some rocket seeds by way of an example. They’re so incredibly tiny, but add warmth, air, water and a few chemicals present in the soil and that speck of dust somehow turns into a plant? I think it’s one of those things that the more you understand it, the more amazing it is.