Nourishing Bites | Sowing Gratitude Part 1
Lettuce Seeds | Possibility and power reside within us all.
Part I | Part II
Each Sunday we count out our lettuce seeds to be planted the following day into a small kitchen bowl and add water. A soak in clean water overnight has proven to increase germination. I understand how important it is to drink up for the long journey of transformation ahead. The 3 mm long seeds of some varieties are semi-translucent. In sunlight, I can make out the dim dark shape of a being resting within the light tan wrapping.
This week, seventy-eight seeds float on the water in the corelle soup bowl. I have to count twice, for the group seems so small. I think of all the families we are working to feed this year- over one hundred- and for a split second worry I have misjudged.
How will this tiny bowl of seeds be enough?
And then my mind plays out what I have seen unfold over and over when water, then soil, connect with seed.
No words, no way to explain- to truly explain- the hatching, the breaking forth from shell, the small cotyledons, the first green color, the oblong leaves, the second leaves, then leaves upon leaves, wrapping, reaching, growing.
Does it not impress anyone else that a mere 3 mm will someday soon fill a salad bowl? Fill my heart with gratitude? Fill our community with nourishment? I mean, it’s only seventy-eight little seeds that easily fit on top of one penny.
***
The chemical equation for photosynthesis is this: start with carbon dioxide and water, add the sun’s energy and mighty chlorophyll and you end up with sugars and oxygen.
But where, I wonder, in this equation, is the byproduct of hope?
Where I wonder, on the Periodic Table of Elements is the symbol for miraculousness or gratitude or joy or astonishment?
***
The broccoli and cabbage and lettuce and beets came rolling into the packing shed on Friday’s harvest. Pure gorgeousness. No matter how many seasons, how many succession plantings, how many rounds of crops pass through our hands, Brad and I celebrate these successes as if they were the first and could be the last.
Real food, from seed to plate, is nothing short of a miracle. Every leaf, every bulb, every bud.
Likewise, as Brad and I sit enjoying our supper, we think of all the beautiful, nourishing AJF meals that are most certainly unfolding across our community. We attempt to distill down the work, the abundance, the immensity of what happens on this working farm to one small act of quiet recognition. A pause, a whisper of happiness, a smile across our faces, and in our hearts.
When you fill your plate this week, we trust you’ll take time to bring your hands to your heart and say a word of grace to the mighty little seeds that continue to steward hope and possibility in your life, and in ours.
Your Farmer,
April
Last Week’s Broccoli Harvest | Picture perfect.