Growing your own garden from a seed is always seems like a miracle to me.  I’m always in awe of how nature can create something so amazing and complex with a seed, some soil and regular sprinklings of water.  It’s even more miraculous when the thing growing is more than a common weed- those things don’t seem to have any problem growing and taking over huge spans of land.

This summer I helped my friends clear out part of their yard and re-landscape parts of it, including a patch of weeds that we planted with wildflower seeds.  Now I know that wildflowers are just another variety of weed, but at least they flower and look a bit more exciting than the common grass.

After spending six hours pulling grass, roots and all, from an 8 by 8 patch of ground, I sprinkled the area with wildflower seeds.  The watering was probably the best part after working in the sun for that long.  After that, all I could do was wait.  Wait for the seeds to start sprouting and hope that I didn’t leave too many grass roots in the ground for them to overtake the patch again.  When I returned about a week later, I found that I had several sprouts of various shapes pushing their way up through the soil and I was beyond thrilled that they had taken root.  I felt like a genius for making it happen when all I really did was mix seeds into the damp ground.  Big whoop.  But I still felt amazing.  I can only guess how this little boy felt when his carrot was served for dinner:

Steve Annis

I think this advertisement is extremely clever because it gives emotional connection to all ages- the young gardner, the over looking father, the exasperated mother (when she can’t get her son to come in out of the rain) and the onlooking sister.  We’ve all had some sort of project that provide that range of emotion and it brings back those childhood memories of when something that now seems so small and insignificant, seemed so overpoweringly important.

There’s something about growing your own food that brings great satisfaction to people of every age.  I can see how farmers must feel when they bring in their harvest and know that their hard work is going to feed people far and wide.