Nursery

I remember being 3 and being sent to nursery school. First day, second day, third day, and who knows until when, I'd cry whenever my dearly-departed AE would leave me in the classroom at the care of my teachers. Being the one who took care of all of us siblings, AE told me that I was the one who cried the loudest and would look out from the window to make sure I see a glimpse of her and she has not left me. For some reasons, I remembered this scene while doing "nursery" with the seeds. 

When the seeds in the germination bed started to sprout with life, we placed them in more solid ground. Again, egg trays seem to be the fashionable thing so we filled them with vermicast, the poop of African night crawler earthworms that become soil-like. 

The lettuces (frillice, rapid, lolo rosa, romaine, and  arugula) look real cute and extremely delicate. I must have killed at least two in the transplanting of these centimeter-long sprouts to their new beds.

After a while, though, some started to wilt. They didn't look like they liked their new beddings. And true enough, after a few more days (weeks) on the egg trays, the little peeking green that they used to be, disappeared. 

It's a saddening sight. I tried to let everything stay longer in hopes that the little life I see in them would mature into at least a leaf. Some did, but most simply....didn't. Sad.

Like me crying, maybe they were shaken with the new environment. Plants get stressed, too. I should have been more sensitive in handling them, and hear them when they were crying. But I didn't. I had high hopes that they'll survive and wasn't even bothered that their delicate status required more of my patience and time. 

AE knew that, so she stayed longer and would look back at her iyakin three-year-old alaga through the window until my attention was more on the teacher than her. I miss her, it's her 8th death anniversary today. Who knew she has been teaching me farming lessons way back in nursery school. The Farmer knew. And that's why I had to be reminded of that. 

Beautiful Seed

So with all the fertilizers in the brewing zone, I think we're ready to start, and I'm ready as well! And where else do we start but from the seed. 

With packets of seeds on hand, we (and when it's we it means me, the caretaker Lisa, her daughter, and the two other carpenters who are around), are starting on the plan!

Staying true to being a diligent student, I tried what I learned from the Costales seminar to the letter with a bit of adjustments as I eyeball the minutes and certain raw materials. That's just me being "creative" without going out of line. And true to my "no waste" mantra, I collected all the possible containers that I can in our kitchen and brought them to the farm.

Thus, this egg tray that turned into a soaking tray for the seeds to absorb all those microorganisms and dissipate whatever chemical residues they may have. 

I found these cotton husks while walking and they were just lying on the ground, perhaps swept by the recent storm. I picked them up and they made perfect bedding for germinating the seeds.

And when there weren't enough of them, I took out tissue from my bag, and turn them into germinating beds as well.

It's hard to imagine how these yellow flat pellets can turn into red and green bellpeppers. How these red dots can be onions of so many layers. How these oddly shaped  How these spiky black freckles can be lettuce. But today and in the succeeding days that I germinated seeds, I'm reminded that yes, we all started from seeds. Everything and everyone else did. A beautiful seed.