Sowing the seeds of...

It is early in that season of blind faith. Believing in what seems the almost magical act of germination.

On grey days I have prepped a few pots and planted early seeds, even stuck potatoes in the wet ground hardly daring to think that I might harvest something from them in months to come. But I still do it. It’s about faith.

Children have this blind faith in bucketfuls, immune to the adult scepticism we possess, they believe what they know to be truth.

When my daughter was 6 she decided to plant a seed from her half eaten apple one day. She potted it up and labelled it perfectly in the sure fire belief that one day she would have an apple tree. 

I was caught between emotions of wanting to encourage the act of natural interest but at the same time sceptical that the seed of a shop bought apple that has probably been genetically modified to within an inch of its life is not going to ever germinate and much less bear fruit.

Anyway, I do my best to keep my mouth shut and facilitate the activity.

With a few reminders to water it on the windowsill, to my utter surprise (and, I mean, incredulous) it germinated and a little seedling emerged from that Tesco royal gala pip!

She was curious and pleased to see its arrival but of course not half as surprised as me. She had known that would happen so it wasn’t such a big moment for her. She had faith whereas I just had cynicism.

So there will be plenty of times for them to see the reality of nature and science in this day and age for all its negatives and its positives. They can decide on their attitudes to that then. But let's not bombard them with it right now, just sow the seed of faith and love in nature and get our hands muddy doing it.

This is an extract from Sowing the Seeds of Observation on The Smart Happy Project.

Lisa Lillywhite

The Smart Happy Project

Read more from Lisa Lillywhite here!