February 25, 2010
February 22, 2010
My lemon sprouted and how to make munimula flower pots
I started hating throwing stuff away about a year or two ago, I think. I don’t take the time and effort to organize my trash so that they seem un-throwawayage-worthy, either, so I can’t blame my mom for throwing them away, even though I do. Several weeks ago, I decided to swim against the current of laziness that I am so prone to and cut some aluminum cans to use as flower pots (christened “munimula flower pot” by me now). I was motivated to do so by my desire to plant the numerous lemon seeds that were left over from making lemon pound cakes with the lemons out in my yard and the necessity for pots to plant them in. Some avoidance of throwawayage and the initiation of the growth of what is presumably a lemon plant were made possible by my making. Here’s how I did it:
I took a can, poked a few holes on the bottom with an awl, cut the top part that narrows a bit (make a slit with a utility knife approximately where the even part and the narrowing part meet, and force one blade of scissors in and cut around with the scissors), taped the cut part of the bigger of the separated two parts with Scotch Tape to prevent injuries, filled it with soil/dirt, wet the soil/dirt with water, poked about an inch deep hole in the soil/dirt, poked a lemon seed in the hole, put the dirt back into the hole, and watered the whole thing some more. (I will provide you with diagrams or photos later.)
I did that for another can, and kept the two seed-dirt-can complexes nice and wet for a while. Then, in the last week of January (like the last six or seven days, not the last line on the calendar), I went to Korea. I stayed there for about a week or so, and in the meanwhile all the stuff I grow were practically abandoned. When I came back in the beginning of February, the two seed-dirt-can complexes were dry. I watered them a couple of times after that, but I went away for five days again, and essentially I didn’t expect anything to happen and forgot about them.
Now here’s what I found late afternoon today on our kitchen windowsill:
“Oh, my God!” It was a complete surprise, totally unexpected. This is the IRC conversation I had about an hour after the discovery:
Me: OMG A
Me: My lemon seed sprouted.
Me: I don’t know whom to thank.
Me: God?
Me: Mother Nature?
Me: Universe?
Me: Me?
A: Yes, all.
A: Who says they’re not one and the same?
…
…
…
Me: So I didn’t expect anything to happen.
Me: But today!
Me: I’d totally forgotten about them but they sprouted!
Me: Well, one of them did.
Me: The other one probably died.
Me: But one sprouted.
Me: I had so many seeds, but I ended up throwing those away.
Me: It’s hard to get myself to plant them all :/
Me: I don’t have soil, too.
Me: But maybe it’s another seed that got stuck in there.
A: Indeed. Part of nature is letting things go. Part of cultivating things is choosing which.
Me: It looks lemony.
Me: Heh.
Me: It’s probably the lemon.
* Me is growing a lemon tree!
* A grins.
Me: I never thought this day would come.
* A grins more.
A: Citrus are awesome.
Me: Oh, I know whom to thank now.
Me: Thanks, lemon seed.
* A smiles.
Stuff I want to say are in that conversation. It was an awesome gift to my pretty standstill days. Good night; I have to see my lemon grown tomorrow.
