Magic Seeds!

I can't even explain how incredibly happy I am when I see new sprouts in the morning. It's like the night possesses some magic growing power and come daylight, little surprises are waiting for me on my windowsill. Inside the one container of chard, in which I had only planted 3 seeds, were 3 new sprouts, bringing the total to six plants! How is that even possible? Then I noticed that two of the four butterhead "marvel of four seasons" lettuces that I planted in the egg container had sprouted. In my garden, I found four basil plants growing secretly behind some old flowerpots. We haven't had basil in the garden for about 5 years, so I have no idea how they could come to be there. Either the seeds were dormant for a very, very long time, or some wandering seeds blew in from somewhere... mystery basil, growing strong.

I transplanted the four into yogurt, sour cream and cream cheese containers and am admiring them on my desk. As I was in the garden, my mom brought me a letter that had just come in the mail, from Sweden--to my surprise and glee! Enclosed was a beautiful etching of a dragonfly, from my friend. I love getting mail. Real mail.

How could my day be any better? Oh right, I acquired 20 pounds worth of fresh local mangoes from an incredibly pregnant tree in Aina Haina... for free. Amazing what bounty the land will give you. Mangoes, basil, mystery chard- all unplanned and quite serendipitous.

Fruit trees are probably the best things to plant. Once they get going, they will provide for years to come. Having some sort of fruit orchard would be so amazing. At Rosenhill it was a delight to stroll under the apple trees, singing loudly, tasting here and there. Transparent-Blanche, the crunchy red ones, the sour green ones, the cool ones with funny, inverted noses. It was impossible to harvest them all. We cooked, juiced, baked, ate them raw, gave them away as much as we could, and there'd still be enough to play baseball and juggle with. When it came to making cider, we ran out of containers. And that was just the apples. There were plums, pears, raspberries, black, red and white currants, blackberries, cherries, strawberries, blueberries... That's for the northern fruits. Now here, here we have a more exotic variety. Avocados, papayas, mangoes, breadfruit, starfruit, jackfruit, bananas, lychee, pineapple, pomegranate, all the citrus, coconut... It's hard to say which "batch" of fruit I like more. The temperate and sub-tropical fruits are both spectacular.

It would be wonderful to have more fruits growing in my yard. So that's exactly what I occupied myself with this afternoon. I started to soak lychee, orange and lemon seeds, as well as a lonely avocado- although if he sprouts, he can keep the other three trees company. Still no action on the papaya front. Hopefully this experiment will be more successful.

And enjoying the mangoes from Palolo: