Can you feel it?!

'The seed is hope; the flower is joy'.- Author Unknown

If there’s anything calculated to get my adrenaline rising faster than you can say photosynthesis, it’s seed-sowing time! This begins proper in February, but there are some that can be started off in the greenhouse in January….. And that’s only a few days away. Yay!

Here are the seeds I will be setting away in the coming week:
* Lobelia
* Petunia
* Alchemilla mollis
* Tomato (red cherry)
* Garlic Chives

I enjoy most elements of gardening, but filling up the seed trays, carefully covering the seeds with compost (or not as the case may be), spraying the trays gently with tepid water…. until, as if by magic, tiny green shoots appear just above the soil level is one of the best ever joys I will never tire of. I suppose it's not magic, but a never-ceasing miracle. Even comparing the form and shape of seeds is fascinating….. look at the difference between a nasturtium seed and a poppy seed!

The photograph was taken in my greenhouse a couple of months ago. It's full of plants I'd set away last Summer and Autumn. Many of them will be going into the coldframe to make space for this year's 'babies'.

This author says it all:

'Of all the wonderful things in the wonderful universe of God, nothing seems to me more surprising that the planting of a seed in the blank earth and the result thereof. Take that Poppy seed, for instance: it lies in your palm, the merest atom of matter, hardly visible, a speck, a pin's point in bulk, but within it is imprisoned a spirit of beauty ineffable, which will break its bonds and emerge from the dark ground and blossom in a splendor so dazzling as to baffle all powers of description'.- Celia Thaxter

http://theseedsite.co.uk/index.html This is an excellent website on probably everything you may need to know about seeds!

'The seed has no idea of being some particular plant, but it has its own form and is in perfect harmony with the ground, with its surroundings ... and there is no trouble. This is what we mean by naturalness'.- Shrunyu Suzuki, Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind