Old-Fashioned Gramma’s Garden

Lots of us dream about accomplishing something that makes others shake their heads in wonder. My funky lifetime wish has been to grow an old-fashioned gramma’s flower garden full of purple, blue, and pink larkspur and bachelor buttons; orange, red, and yellow Indian blankets; lavender cosmos; yellow and white daisies; and multi-color hollyhocks. Despite lifetime efforts and lots of money spent on seeds, it’s taken me 40 years and aspringtime of gentle, well-timed, ample rains to make my dream come true.

The irony of this beautiful flowerbed makes me chuckle. I left town and abandoned it to Mother Nature’s care for weeks. During that time, it had no encouragement. No weeding, no fertilizing, no thinning out plants, no early morning sitting on the paving stones dreaming about the pretty bouquets I hoped to harvest and  display in my kitchen window. Apparently, dirt and seeds enjoy benign neglect because I drove up after that absence to spy thriving pinks, purples, blues, lavenders, whites, yellows, oranges, and reds spilling over garden borders and waving wildly  in evening breezes. They were everything I’d hoped for all the years I’d planted store-bought seed and carefully tended previous endeavors.

So, the next irony in this story is that girlfriends gave me hollyhock and larkspur seeds a few years ago. I then harvested bachelor button and Indian blanket seeds that I’d planted two summers ago and sprinkled those among my friends’ gifts. None of this year’s crop came from miserly garden shop packets. Nope, these were homegrown. Two fellow gardeners and I collected dried pods from previous years’ growth, separated the tiny seeds, and then saved them in paper bags to share.

The hollyhocks, bachelor buttons, Indian blanket, and larkspur took a year to gain a solid foothold in my yard. Last summer, I had scraggly, hesitant blooms--nothing like the towers of frothy color dancing boldly under this spring’s sun. In addition to the rain helping, I suspect good old Kansas breezes had something to do with the expansion of my plantings. A few seeds blew south and started new growth. Then stout southerly winds tumbled the majority of them north across our driveway until they landed in a bed of wood chips. Imagine my surprise to see them take root and grow.

By allowing nature to take its course, I ended up with stunning flowers in places I didn’t sow them. Initially, I thought I’d pull the unplanned starts, but I’m glad I didn’t. Not only do I have a new bed of larkspur and bachelor buttons outdoing itself on the other side of the drive, I have hollyhocks in places I never expected to find them. They proudly belong.

Perhaps letting Mother Nature do her thing in the sowing and watering is the secret to a successful old-fashioned, Gramma’s garden. That saucy anthropomorph has done a stellar job  taking seeds friends gave me, multiplying and then tossing them in the wind, and raining on them to show me how to get the job done. I’m going to help her out by harvesting, drying, and passing on these tiny power packs of beauty to my daughters and my friends.

Stars of Yard, Pasture, and Grocery Store

A grass seed with sharp, hair-like projection recently noodled its way into my sock and then into tender ankle flesh.  It reminded me that by the end of July seeds make themselves particularly evident in our lives.

 A quick look at trees around town reveals creamy yellow ash seeds contrasting themselves against emerald leaves.  Catalpa pods dangle like  funky ornaments amid big, heart shaped leaves.  Locust pods also hang among their leaves like chandelier earrings.  Hackberry trees sport berries that will sustain birds this fall and winter.

Our gardens are also full of seeds: some  edible--like green beans and okra. Others are designed for spitting contests—like watermelon seeds.  Some go to the chickens--like cantaloupe and bell pepper seeds.

Trees and gardens aren’t the only places to see seeds. Walking through a dry pasture reveals dastardly devil’s claw pods still forming.  Any mammal ankle or lower leg is fair game once these ripen and fall from the plant. Nearer the dry creek, plants incubate dangerous versions of Velcro-like monsters that my daughters call porcupine eggs.  I hate removing them from longhaired dogs’ coats and tails.

Somehow in this dry weather, nature sustains goat head stickers and sandburs, which rank with devil’s claws and porcupine eggs as particularly vile seeds.  It’s easy to see why they transport so well and why it’s so hard to destroy them.

The kinds of seeds I’ve been talking about are easy to consider as seeds.  Less evident are seeds we find in grocery store aisles.

Remember your last trip to the market and the narrow lanes you cruised with your slowly filling cart.  How many products that you passed by or put in your cart directly represent seeds?

The condiment shelves are full of seedy items: mustard and poppy seed dressing come immediately to mind.  In the vegetable section, you’ll find canned seeds: various kinds of beans, corn, and hominy find their way into most of our carts.

The baked good segment of the store is full of seeds ground to flour.  In addition, poppy, dill, sesame, pepper, caraway, and other seeds fill the spice shelves.  In that same area, bottles of vanilla and almond flavoring contain distilled seed products. 

A turn down the cereal aisle takes you into another seedy section of the grocery store.  Oatmeal  and barley provide examples of less refined seeds.  Boxes of Cheerios, Chex, and Fruit Loops hide disguised seeds.

Not far from the cereal, jars of peanut butter and Nutella remind us that some of our food favorites were once nutty seeds.  Not far away we find jars and bags of roasted and raw nuts that provide tasty and healthy munchies.

While I curse those grass seeds that lodge in my socks or the porcupine eggs in my dog’s tail, a trip to the grocery store reminds me that life cannot exist without seeds.  Meals and snacks wouldn’t be nearly as delicious without a dash of pepper, a sprinkle of sunflower seeds, or a splash of vanilla.