Every year since I began gardening - 6 years now, I do something that brings me great shame and heart ache.
Early in the year, when I do my sowing, I put several seeds in each pot or plug in order to ensure that I get at least one plant. However, it seems every year, more than one seed germinates in each pot or plug. If you grow plants from seed, you know this.
So, in order to allow one plant to survive and to mature, I am instructed by conventional wisdom to clip all seedlings except for the strongest one.
Every year, comes killing time, my chest fills with anguish. I feel dirty. This is the miracle of life people! These plants did their part. They came. That was our agreement. I provided life with the means to come forth and it did!
I think this contract we make with the Universe every planting season is the source of my shame. I feel I am betraying something when I "thin" the plants.
I wonder if anyone else feels this way. I wonder if some day I will grow callouses on my heart and I won't feel a thing.
I wonder.
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I absolutely get that. The lady at my local Home Depot garden center told me that she actually had to go through therapy to deal with all of the dead plants people brought back. I get that, too.
ReplyDeleteIt is good to have kindred spirits! Misery loves company they say, but gardeners need communities!
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