The bean sprout

When I was about 5 years old, my mother had me do a little experiment. She helped me soak a cotton ball in clean water and place it in a glass jar. She then handed me two beans and helped me place them among the soaked cotton balls and finally set the jar by a window.  

She explained that a little plant would come out of it and eventually more beans would grow from it.  As a child I thought it was magic.  Of course it had to be magic!  I absolutely had no doubt that a whole plant could fit in there...but how?  I was very curious so every day I would sneak up to see if I could catch a plant come out from them.  In a matter of days I observed the different changes that those two little beans went through to become a plant.  Mom pointed out each part of it; the sprout; a root, a stem, and finally the first two leaves.  

Within a few days she helped me plant them into the ground and eventually I was able to pluck a few bean pods. I don't think we ate them but it was a very important lesson that I will always remember.  I learned to appreciate the smell of good healthy soil and I loved poking all kinds of seeds into it.  Beans and corn were the first of many seeds that we would eventually plant in moms garden.  At a young age becoming aware that we could sow seeds into the soil and that we can grow plants...plants that we can eat, was an act of love.  Gardening is loving the smell of fresh soil, the affection we have for caring for each plant, and loving ourselves by eating what we harvest from it.  I learned what gardening really meant...it was a nurturing, loving, magic.  

I treasure that memory because I have no doubt in my mind that I love gardening because of mom.  She taught me how to sow a seed and while I planted bean sprouts, my mother sowed another seed in my heart that sprouted my love for gardening.