Sowing Seeds, but Not the “Right” Way

Just a little bluebird that I saw at the park the other day. Always a treat.

I planted my pound of California poppy seeds today.

I did not do it the right way.

If I followed the directions for how you are supposed to plant seeds, I am pretty sure that I would never plant anything. There are apparently many precise steps you need to follow to plant seeds properly, according to the Google and the backs of the seed packages. The steps include clearing the area of all other plant matter, raking it smooth, gently scattering the seeds, covering them gently with a bit of dirt.

This is what I did: I took the seeds and tossed them wherever I would love to see poppies growing. This means that some of the seeds won’t grow. But with any luck, some will. If the poppy seeds stayed in the seed bag, it is 100 percent guaranteed that nothing new would appear in the spring. This way? At least there is hope. Possibility.

The older I get, the more I understand (to quote Gretchen Rubin, podcast host and author) that the perfect is the enemy of the good. Or, as one of my first writing mentors taught me, “If it’s worth doing at all, it’s worth doing poorly.”

So I got my seeds out of the package and onto the earth. I also dug holes that were not deep enough for the bulbs that my neighbor gave me (because the ground is too hard to get them in as far as is recommended).  But since in past years I never got my bulbs planted deep enough either, and they came up just fine, I think there’s at least a chance that some of them will appear in the spring. I also took time this week to pull up the iris that hadn’t bloomed for years. They were smothering the telephone pole up by the street.  Now in the space where they used to be, I could scatter my poppy seeds.

Now I wait and hope.