To Seed or Not to Seed

Every Tuesday, for the past several weeks, has held the promise of more work done on my garage, and tomorrow is no different. The garage door is supposed to be delivered and the electricians are supposed to come to wire the garage as well as the contractor and his helpers to do more work on the trim. Perhaps they will all come as planned. Perhaps it will be just another Tuesday like all the rest.

Meantime, I’m left with the seeds of ideas about what to do with the yard once it is mine. For now, the yard is strewn with materials and piles of lumber scraps as well as the defunct carport, so there’s no use in doing anything such as planting seeds until it is all cleared out. Besides, once the garage is finished and the sidewalk from the back door of the house to the pedestrian door of the garage is built, many loads of dirt will need to be hauled in to even the ground from the house to the garage and all around the garage, especially where the old building used to be.

Then, of course, I will have decisions to make. To plant a ground cover or leave it as dirt is one such decision. I considered a clover yard because it’s a favorite of bees or maybe even a California poppy field, but I have noticed recently how much birds seem to like the bare ground. There must be insects or old seeds or something for them to eat that might not be available to them with a ground cover.

Another decision is what to do with all the old seeds I have — dozens and dozens of packets. I would have thought that seeds wouldn’t go bad — after all, corn has been grown from maize discovered in ancient pueblos — but so far, any of these seeds I have planted have turned out to be moribund. So now I wonder if I should take a risk and sow the seeds in the new earth when it arrives in case they decide to grow, but if they aren’t viable, all I will do is awaken whatever weeds might be in the dirt. I also can’t help thinking that as long as I don’t plant the seeds, there’s always the dream of someday having flowers, but if I plant the seeds, and they are dead, then there won’t be any flowers. And anyway, I’m not sure I want to waste the water on some sort of large-scale planting just yet.

So, to seed or not to seed? Such a conundrum!

But there’s no real need to decide just yet because, so far, Tuesday never seems to come.

[image error]

***

[image error]Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One. “Grief: The Inside Story is perfect and that is not hyperbole! It is exactly what folk who are grieving need to read.” –Leesa Healy, RN, GDAS GDAT, Emotional/Mental Health Therapist & Educator.