Sprouted Seeds And Plant Sex

My first year as a gardener I watched my seeds so closely that I believe I actually saw them growing. I watched them unfold from the moist soil and push their way  through, striving to get to the sun. Four years later I still get up every morning like a kid on Christmas to see if they have sprouted yet. I got up this morning and went to the kitchen to find over half of my seeds had come to life!

The first year I was so afraid that my plants were not getting pollinated. There was a shortage of bees and I saw no butterflies. The only thing in my garden was wasps, and plenty of them. My first instinct was fear but they seemed to leave me alone. I looked up the reason that wasps were patrolling my garden and found that they eat caterpillars and their larva. Since I was watching my first year garden like a newborn baby I was actually lucky enough to see a wasp fly away with a small caterpillar. I looked up the pollination issue and found that I could self-pollinate if I was really that worried about it.

I got up at dawn, the grass was still dewy and the flowers on my vegetable plants were just starting to open. I took a fine paintbrush and I swirled it around inside the male flower. When I looked at the tip of the brush I could see the pollen. I carefully took this to the female flower (the one with the baby squash behind it) and I brushed the inside of it with the pollen from the male. I shivered a little, I felt like a mad scientist. This was plant sex at its most basic. Soon enough the flower fell off the end of the baby squash and it grew big and strong. I had done my job, and the bees and butterflies started coming out in full force.

I garden to slow down time, to have fresh chemical free food and pretty flowers. It’s so fantastic to look at the backyard halfway through the summer and know that a few months earlier those plants were just seeds, sitting on a shelf in a little packet waiting to be taken home and nurtured. I always have plenty of plants leftover and I try to disperse them to my friends so they can experience the feeling of growing something as well. I have actually had great luck with sending plants through the mail and I fully intend to give away some to you darlings as soon as they are big enough to travel.

Please feel free to ask any questions that you may have about gardening and such, and if you have any gardening tips to share I would love that. Happy growing!

Tags: garden, humor, nature, plant