Seedling Fairy Strikes Again

Yay! The seedling fairy left me some presents on the stairs! Poof! Like magic, I'm reappearing in my garden again.

My horticulturalist/educator friend loves to propagate, and I am the lucky recipient of her joy. This time it's nutrient-rich greens: mizuna, Swiss Chard, tatsoi, bok choy. Some for the garden, some for containers.

Seedlings make such simple, thoughtful gifts. My fairy seedmother is on a mission to make sure people in her community have plants that are acclimated to our growing area and free of the pests that could be introduced from buying plants areas outside of Volcano.

Back in the sixties, my Hawaiian seedling fairy was a homesteader in a remote area of Canada. There she grew food to feed a community of Vietnam war conscientious objectors. What she couldn't grow, she bought in town with what little money they all pooled together. Armed with an impressive Chinese cleaver and the resolve to stretch ingredients to fill everyone up, she whipped up comforting meals which no doubt would have made her hanai Chinese mom proud. It was a hard life, she remembers, but the memories are priceless.

Today I tracked down the seedling fairy at the farmers market and gave her some Seminole pumpkin seeds, which do better in a warmer, lower elevation. She has a garden at an elementary school down in Hilo where she teaches. Hopefully I'll get to visit it sometime around Halloween and see some more magic, maybe even see the Great Seminole Pumpkin arise this year.