A couple weeks ago, I filled four small rows in my garden with sweet peas left over from a bag of Wetzel seeds I had stored in the shed. They may have been two years old. I was foolish to have risked planting them, but I couldn’t just toss them out. A week passed by and no peas. A few days later I saw the most incredible sight – several little pea sprouts peeking through the soil. To me, this is the miracle of spring. It’s why I plant a garden. I am amazed that basically a dead seed can bring new life.
When you think about what a seed has to do – to move all that soil overhead aside – and burst upon the scene, it is truly a miracle. I love to plant a garden because of that, not because of the vegetables I may or may not reap.
And each spring, I think of my father when I work the soil and bury the seeds – having faith they will grow.
My father, James E. Brewer, had graduated from North Carolina State College with a degree in horticulture. He too loved planting and gardening, but he never had a chance to return to his hometown in Clemmons, NC to farm and work the soil. He was killed in a fire fight after his B29 crashed in Burma in World War II just a few days before I was born.
I also think of Daddy George. He also loved gardens and always had one wherever we lived. Sometimes they were massive gardens and yours truly was the designated weed puller. But the vegetables were delicious and plentiful. He also loved to see new plants springing to life.
And so another ritual has continued in my life. I have planted and the seeds have cooperated. New life is given to what once was dead. It’s a little like the Resurrection.
Have a Happy Easter.