Hoping for Productive Sleep

After yesterday's near-70-mile-per-hour winds and cold dampness, Tir and I stepped off the front porch early into a clear and welcoming morning.  The winds had stilled, and warmer weather was forecasted -- although I've noticed that the weather doesn't always watch the 6-o' clock news.  The sky, at least that part of it that had crept out from behind the darkness, was blue; everything seemed to validate the item on the calendar page inserted rather naively months ago:  seeding day. 

Earlier in the week I had readied the seed cell trays, distributing them on tables in the barn and filling them with potting soil.  Yesterday I had resorted the seed packets according to planting time, with those requiring 6-8 weeks of sheltered early start waiting by the door.  Nothing else was allowed on the schedule.  I had no idea if this would be a 15-minute little project, or one that would chew through the better part of the day. 

There is something awe inspiring about sowing of seeds.  I don't mean to make too much of it -- after all, I had done it with reasonable success last year in the sunlight of our townhome's living room window -- it's just that, leaping mentally ahead to the eventual plants in the garden, the seeds seem so tiny, so whispy, so fragile and inauspicious.  Fingering inside the envelope of Brandywine tomato seeds -- one of the heirloom varieties that inspired this project -- I weigh the disparity between the fleshy softball-size fruit to come and this tiny little seed hardly bigger than the period at the end of this sentence.  Amazing.

The "blow-by-blow" is hardly worth detailing; marigolds and strawflowers on the aesthetic side, with tomatoes of wild variation and peppers spanning hot to sweet, tomatillos, cabbage, eggplants, kohlrabi, purple onions and a few herbs on the other.  Some are surface sown; others 1/4" deep.  I marked with popsicle sticks, sprinkled with water, and then arranged the flats on the greenhouse shelves beneath lowered and helpfully aimed and timed light fixtures.  Switching on the heater just to give the atmosphere a boost, I smiled, swept the space with my eyes, whispered a prayer, and closed the door.  If anyone is taking notes, it all took a total of 3 hours.

In a few hours, the timer will switch off the suspended lights, and then perhaps all of us can get some sleep.