On craving what's right in front of me
Why am I salivating over parsnip, carrot, and rutabaga seeds?
As a wannabe-good-at-this gardener with more wistful longing than skill or persistence, my ability to see a seed all the way through, from sowing to harvest, has historically been…erratic.
Yet my love for the seeds themselves, and what they represent, is unwavering.
Some years I buy seeds, plant them, and tend them.
Some years I buy seeds, plant them, and forget to tend them.
Some years I buy seeds and forget to plant them.
Some years I never buy seeds at all.
But nearly every year, around this time of year, I at least browse seeds: online, in the store, in a colorful catalog. Always hungrily, both for the harvest represented in the photos, and what the seeds represent: a return of spring, a coming bounty.
This year I've been spending a lot of time with my seed catalog (as I wrote about in this week's So-Slow Book Club).
And after flipping through a few times, jotting down a list of notes that grows longer by the day, it’s been interesting to see which seeds I’m most drawn to.
Despite rich, colorful, inviting photo spreads in pretty much every kind of floral, fruit, herb, and vegetable imaginable, I keep returning to roots.
Root vegetables, that is; brightly-colored carrots in exotic shades, beets, sweet potatoes, parsnips; even turnips and rutabagas.
Once I noticed this, I couldn’t help looking for a reason.
Perhaps, I thought, I’m craving warmth and, literally, rootedness - both things symbolized by vegetables that grow under the ground and then wait patiently all winter for us to eat them?
Maybe. But I also think it’s interesting that of all the hundreds of kinds of out-of-season plants I might find myself craving this time of year—rainbow chard, or just-picked raspberries, or a juicy, August-sun-ripened tomato, for example—I’m instead ogling over photos of veggies that can easily be found right now, still in their prime.
Maybe this year, instead of looking at the seed catalog as a tantalizing taste of what’s to come, it’s serving more as a reminder to me to notice what’s beautiful about the very moment I’m in—something that’s not always easy to do as we move into late winter, a time of year not especially celebrated in lower Michigan for its beauty.
What dense, starchy tuber have I not yet roasted or baked or cooked into a stew? Purple carrots would be fun to roast. Have I even touched a turnip yet this year?
Soon enough, I’m sure I’ll be craving spring peas and strawberries. For now, I’m letting my eye linger longer on those lovely root veggies, and concentrating on squeezing even more flavor out of this fickle, muddy season.
Wow those pictures are just beautiful! I can see why you are drawn to them, Meagan!
I’ve given up on planting seeds, even here in the Pacific Northwest where everything grows, especially those happy cool season veggies. However, I have become rather obsessed with roasted celery root.