The astonishing promise of a seed.

By June Santon


I stand by the window, blue-and-white-checked curtain pulled aside, shining a yellow penlight down into a paper Dixie cup, peering intently inside. I hold the cup, frowning down first from directly above, then from the side, moving the flashlight back and forth. I was already holding the cup close to the window and under the regular kitchen-sink light. Now I'm trying to get still more light on it, so I can get a better look.

The cup is filled with soil-and so much else. Actually, it's not soil, it's an artificial seed-starting mix I paid a ridiculous price for, but it's the perfect texture and density: nice and fine-grained and light so the new sprouts will have an easy time making their way up through it. I'm checking for germination. The seed mix, fine as it is, has distinct particles, so the head of a new sprout can be just under a particle and not obvious. Or a particle of soil can be partially raised, as if there might be a sprout there, but when you look really, really closely, there's not. Or-I'm sorry. Hi. My name's June. I plant seeds.

These ones happen to be alyssum seeds, and the germination time, plainly stated on the paper envelope, is seven to ten days. It's only been three. But you never know . . . I have no pride. I'll even look in the morning right after the night I planted. At least I don't use a flashlight then. I have a cold frame outside, built by my more-than-patient partner. I've got cups and trays of sprouted seedlings scattered all about the house because I've really started them too early, even in temperate Houston, and they're just not going to live if I put them outside, even in the cold frame. I know. I tried once already. There're more paper cups scattered around my house than you'd see after a college frat party, yet I can't tear myself away from the seed catalog that came in the mail today. Why am I doing this?

It all started some time back (already I don't remember when), when I was whiling away a quiet period at home recovering from surgery. I picked up a few old seed catalogs my partner had left lying on a table. Instantly, my imagination was captured. I sent away for far too many of those three-by-five envelopes and waited excitedly for them to arrive. I bought potting soil. I bought trays. I bought cups. I ran through any number of versions of a starting mix, wondering which the new sprouts would like best. And I planned and dreamed in the wintertime lull. Then, sure enough, came that special moment when the first green shoot poked its tiny head above the crumbly brown surface, surrounded by a cheerful ring of painted pink daisies at the top of the Dixie cup.

I was hooked.

Maybe it was because of the promises. You want promises? Listen to these:
Prince Borghese: Small, egg-shaped, red beauties, shining in the sun, just like they do in Sicily at harvest. The sweet-tart globes come from our best Italian supplier . . .

Old Flame: These big, lobed, crack-resistant fruits ripen toward the end of summer, a sunny yellow shot through with rose-red. Their succulent texture is smooth-almost creamy-with full, sweetly mild flavor, not acid, but cool and rich. Created by a small breeder as a labor of love . .

Black from Tula: Dark, purply brown with green shoulders, these exotic fruits may be more prone to catfacing than most, but-ah-the flavor! This Russian heirloom is full, round, and faintly salty, with a perfect acid-sugar balance . . .

Enchantment: Plump, heavy, rich-flavored, the crimson fruits are a gardener's version of Faberge's fabulous jeweled eggs . . .
And these are tomatoes we're talking about.

I believe it, every bit of it, and I must experience those tomatoes. I must see each one sprout, grow, flourish, and fruit. I must taste them, every one.

That might be doable, but we haven't yet mentioned the other vegetables. Or the flowers. Or the herbs . . . do you have any idea how many basils there are? Or flowers you can actually eat?

So there're the promises, and they're powerful. But ultimately it's the miracle. In fact, the really powerful promise is the promise of the miracle. I take a tiny, dried, black nugget the size of a grain of sand, to all appearances utterly devoid of life. I stare at it under the light, lying at the center of the shallow cup formed by the palm of my hand. An inanimate-looking speck. But this speck holds inside it a foot-and-a-half-tall, green basil plant, fully leafed, fragrant and bushy in the sun. This little black speck looks absolutely identical to the tiny black speck over there that holds inside it a purple basil plant. But the one speck will release a green plant, with shiny leaves, and the other will produce a plant with purple leaves and just a slightly different fragrance. And they won't get mixed up, even if you plant them right next to each other.

I know more than most people about all the mechanics of this stuff-I cloned for a living for a while-but this little speck still blows me away. When I see that first, minuscule, curled, pale-green wisp of a sprout poking up between a couple of grains of vermiculite, I hear God speaking.

So I drill little holes in the surface of the ersatz soil in the Dixie cup with a wooden chopstick marked on the end-1/4 inch, 1/2 inch, 1 inch-and I pick up each little seed with tweezers, and I drop it into a hole, and when each hole has received its little charge, I trickle a fine stream of vermiculite into each hole, tamp down the top with my finger, give it a final spray from a plastic bottle, and set the cup in a tray with a quarter-inch or so of water.

Tomorrow morning, I'll be checking. First thing.

For the miracle.

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