Learning to Let Go and Let Nature Take Its Course

We decided to go ahead and plant seeds today so that everyone could be involved in this process. I hope that our lack of patience does not hurt our plants, but I really do think that it will work out. Almost everyone made it to the garden today for planting, which was really exciting. It was actually a fast process, but it was fun to all reconnect.

After planting the seeds today, I felt so unsure and nervous. I wanted to have some green button light up to tell me that I dug the hole to the proper depth, placed the seeds the perfect length apart, and successfully covered them. I kept looking to Sara and Will, our garden gurus, to reassure me that I was doing this simple process of placing the seeds in the soil correctly. I have grown accustomed to receiving instantaneous feedback because technology allows this in our contemporary world. Today, I had to accept that I would have to wait to see if the seeds would grow. No one was going to tell me on the spot that it would work because no one knows if it will. At first, this made me uncomfortable. I was convinced that gardening was magic. I just put a seed in the ground and then in a few weeks it will grow? Something seemed off. But then I realized that the risk in gardening is kind of exhilarating. If the seeds don’t take root, then we can try again. We have plenty of seeds! It was a liberating realization for me that I have no final control over the outcome of the plants.

Further, I learned today that there is no right or wrong way to garden. Accepting this truth was difficult for me because I love rules. In the kitchen, I rarely stray from the recipe. In school, I live by my syllabus. I like to follow directions and I like a blueprint for everything I do. Yet, in the garden there is only so much that we can plan in advance, and then the rest requires a general judgment call and patience. We laid the seeds out strategically so that, for example, the sunflowers would be on the end and shadow the least number of plants possible. Yet, beyond this we just dug holes and placed the seeds in. We were given certain depths to dig, but we did not have rulers. As Katie pointed out, seeds have been growing for a really long time so it must not be that hard or an exact science. And she is right. Getting the perfect soil depth is not as important as simply getting the seeds in the soil. Moreover, gardening is a natural process, and at some point we have to let go and just let nature take its course. The next few days will be hard for me, waiting to see if any plants start to poke through the soil. I will be desperately waiting for the few days of rain to pass so that the seeds can then get the sun that they need to start sprouting (or germinating, as I learned today). We have done all that we can, and now it is time to wait and put fate in Mother Nature’s hands…