Try Again!

Well, it turns out that seeds will sprout! This seems silly and self evident, but I have a hard time with that period of time between dropping a seed in the dirt and seeing something green poke up its head. It fills me with anxiety not to be able to see progress. What’s happening down there? Is it working? When I see that first tiny speck of green poking up out of the soil it’s always a great relief to me.

With regard to starting seeds inside, here’s a few things I’ve already learned:

1. Use better soil. This is also self evident, and not waiting to do this until I had better soil was just anxiousness and laziness.
2. The seedmat seems to work.
3. Having now used the 4-3-3 I won’t be afraid of it anymore.
4. I think the plastic bag “domes” are okay, but I think that I crowded everything – too many little pots too close together in too small of a space.
5. Don’t put the bag too tightly around the pots – the seeds in some pots didn’t sprout and the soil grew mold.

I pulled out something a few days ago then realized it was a seed with a tap root, so I poked it back down in (tap root down) and brushed a little more dirt over top. This morning there are two of them clearly visible, white Black Beauty Zucchini seeds sitting at the top of the soil line, with beautiful and delicately curved tap roots curving up out of them and then down. They look like swan’s necks. I got some good organic potting soil yesterday and will add some to the top. (I need to top off the tomato and pepper transplants too).

I think now that they’ve sprouted I can leave the domes off. I moved the ones that didn’t sprout and now have only those that did. I do have to say that because I used soil from the garden, rather than potting soil, I’m not one hundred percent sure that what is sprouting are seeds I planted, or if it’s not something in the soil (grass, clover, etc.) that is sprouting. I may start some more this weekend in potting soil that I picked up last night. I have a few more seeds. It looks like I got sprouts from zucchini, cucumbers, eggplant and one habanero. Most of the habanero seeds just ended up laying on top of the dirt with no action.

It’s still too soon to know if I’ll end up with any plants out of this, but I have conquered my fear and discomfort about doing it, and have learned a few things the hard way.

But what I most want to say this morning is that the unlikely occurrence of seeing anything sprout in these little pots at all spurs me towards philosophical reflection.

Every step taken at all – even those taken in hesitation and ignorance – become part of a body of knowledge, and every mistake becomes understanding, so that the most important thing to do is to take some step, any step at all. I think I saw starting seeds inside as too complicated because it’s easy to become overwhelmed by research, by information and advice. Eventually you have to just take a stab at something because it’s only by doing this that you start really learning and that the learning sticks with you.

I will probably start some more seeds in some better soil on Sunday, and continue to try to get a few plants out of my first experiment. This try again principle is certainly familiar to me – pop philosophy, inspirational books, biographies of those who accomplished great things with their lives resound with the battle cry to try again. As an aspiring novelist I certainly understand the cycle of submission, rejection, try again, and the fact that success is usually not the outcome of submission, but the outcome of try again. I always remember a quote from Thomas Edison about how he discovered how many ways that a light bulb wouldn’t work. But it wasn’t until this morning that I realized that try again is a principle of nature.

Try again is built into the very concept of rebirth – the multitude of seeds produced by a plant, the multitude of eggs produced by animals – nature understands that there’s a good chance you won’t succeed on your first shot, but there’s every chance that you’ll succeed eventually – that some attempts will make it, and some won’t. Our mantra to try again is a fundamental law of nature in our modern lives that we are scarcely aware of. Perhaps thinking of it this way in our moments of hesitation and discouragement can be a consolation that we haven’t failed, but are only ever in process.