April is the Month of Openings
Evocations of Seeds
by
Frank La Rosa Mazza
I will spare you the many words written about April--"April is the cruelest month'' and all that stuff academics adore. I am certain that you have heard many of these platitudinous intellectualizations about April. So, I shall write of my own experience of April and Spring. As I see it
Yes, April is the month of openings, and the greatest of these is the Opening that comes into and out of ourselves. And, it is also that marvelous Opening, inward and outward, into the dark silent rooms of the Soul that leads to the inner Self that occurs in our own garden. When we are truly alive, present in our own protected garden, called the hortus conclusus (the walled garden), the Self peers out to us from the fecund wet, spongy earth through which the insistent spear-leaves pierce with audacious certitude; this leaf demanding display of lily blades and their flowers, the buzzing of bees and other insects, the sunning lizards, the feel of the sun on ones cheek--all of this is an Opening.
The greatest of these Openings is that miracle of sprouting seeds.
I spend my pre-April days looking at the pictures of flowers and fruits and plants in seed catalogs: the " Strictly Medicinal Seeds" catalog by Richo Cech and family and the "J. L. Hudson Seedsman Ethnobotanical Catalog of Seeds" from La Honda, California. These are true seed catalogs prepared by people who dearly love seeds and plants and have devoted their lives to them. Both catalogs have a special voice and tone. These are qualities you don't get with the corporate world writing. Then, I order the seeds. I await them to arrive in the mail. "Will they come today? Ah, they've come!"
If you want to sprout the seeds early indoors, it is best to sterilize the earth that you plant the seeds in. This will prevent the gardener's bane called damping off. The most crucial and dangerous point in a seed's existence (or any birth) is immediately after it sprouts. This is when damping off can occur, and then one could feel so very bad. What had looked like a new beginning has died. All you have for your efforts is a limp, seed stalk, two limp seed-leaves, and no hope for the future.
To avoid all of this, wash out the seed growing containers in extremely hot even boiling water, or with chlorox water (one teaspoon per gallon), or best of all, use a microwave proof dish to zap the earth you have placed in it. Zap for five to seven minutes the earth that you will need, or even ten minutes if you are compulsive. Do this zapping by microwave, and the fungi, viruses, weed seeds, and the other enemies of the sprouting seeds will be rendered inert. Now the seeds will sprout safely and healthily.
I have a neat set up in my garage. I load the zapped earth into clean plastic pots and place them on electric seed sprouting heat mats. These electric mats keep the earth and the seeds at about 75-80F degrees, thus avoiding that cold, wet time of cool weather if the seeds are sprouted outdoors. Later, after two or more true leaves appear, I place these pots and their inhabitants out in the sun, gradually hardening them off to their new environment. I often bring the pots back indoors at night, especially if there is bad weather such as cold heavy, hard rain.
In the garage set up, I have a controlled seed sprouting situation that is safe and relatively easy. And, I can sleep easy at night. Yes, I am overly responsible
A soil thermometer (Ugh-'soil,' an ugly word at least to my mind) helps to make sure that the mats are working, keeping the temperature right for germination. Granted, 'soil' is an acceptable word in some gardening contexts.
What a gift, that after only three days you will see lettuce seeds sprouting with their hypocotyls (stems) heaving their bent over baby backs out of the damp earth, and the first seed leaves will be greeting you and this world of light. Everything seems right again when this sprouting birth happens.
If there is anything that I believe in at all, it is this: seeds are always sprouting anywhere and somewhere in the world. Claire Leighton, the wonderful engraver artist, observed this and said that seeds are "beyond borders". They don't bow down to political regimes, dictators, repressive governments, nasty people, or "their lonely betters." They love cracks in sidewalks. In fact they can heave sidewalks. They will not be repressed. They are audacious!
FLR-M
18 April 2020
