What do you do when you know you had a packet of seeds, but now you can’t find them? They’re not in the regular bag of seed envelopes. You’ve looked in case you inadvertently left them on your desk or for some strange reason, in a desk drawer. You might even ask your partner, “Have you by chance seen a pack of French Breakfast Radishes?”
A few weeks ago, I had received a package from Seeds Ireland containing a variety of seeds for my winter garden as well as some seeds I wanted to experiment with. One evening, I was looking at gaps in the garden and thought to fill in some between tomato plants – between one plant, the French Radishes and between the next two, some carrot seeds.
A couple of days ago, some more space in the garden became available where I am planting kale and thought it would also be a perfect place to closely plant some lettuces and the French breakfast radishes. But for the life of me, I could not find the radish seed package! I was quite perplexed and frustrated.
Radish varieties are a great seed to sow when you are looking for fast germination, and many gardeners also use them as “markers” for rows amid slower germinating seeds. I didn’t really want them for that purpose but rather to just get more of them into the soil and let them grow.
I was really puzzled about what could happened to my packet/envelope of radish seeds. Finally, I recalled the details that the evening I had planted them, I had indeed taken two packets of seeds – the radishes and carrots out with me to the garden. I sort of had a recollection of putting the first packet into a pocket of my shorts I was wearing to then sow some of the carrot seeds.
“Hmmmm! Could they be in a recent pair of shorts I have worn??” I checked – nothing.
I asked Kyriaki, “You did some laundry recently, did you happen to come across anything in my pockets?”
“No,” was the answer.
At this point however, I was thinking that either I left the packet of seeds outside on the table and one of the big winds we get blew the packet way, or maybe… I forgot to remove them from the pocket of whatever shorts I was wearing, which has now gone through the clothes washing machine.
Here in Greece, almost no one has a clothes dryer so laundry is hung on the line after it has been washed then brought in when dried, to be ironed or “pressed” as some call it. And in Greece, they iron EVERYTHING. You don’t go out in public with clothing that even has a slight wrinkle (reminds me of how I was brought up in Northern Ireland and then Canada with those Northern Irish ways of neatness).
As a last resort, I went through my shorts that had gone through the clothes washer in the past few days, but not yet ironed. And would you believe it, in one of the pockets, I found a lump of paper. The lump of paper in my pocket felt like a mystery waiting to unfold… and inside the lump, was a tiny ziplock bag of seeds!
I could even smell the distinct pleasant smell of the laundry detergent Kyriaki uses. And I assumed at first that the seeds probably got destroyed going through the clothes washing and rinsing process but at least the mystery of where they got to was solved. I need not waste any further time looking.
But then I looked again at this ziplock baggy of seeds: “Quite a few of these French radish seeds are germinating roots!!” The photo at the top of this post is what I saw.
I am sure all the neighbours heard me laughing, laughing partly with joy that perhaps my French radish seeds might be okay, but also at the fact that some of these seeds somehow took in the washer water that seeped through the ziplock – and were still trying their best to come to life.
I had a couple of seed pots filled with soil that I took put some of the root germinated seeds into, and the rest of all seeds, germinated or not, I put in a nice row near some newly planted kale seedlings.
Whatever happens with these seeds will be a fun memory no matter if they end up being successful or not. But it is a good observation to realize that no matter what conditions, life tries to survive and thrive on this earth!
Do you have any funny seed germination stories? Leave a comment!
Oh Ian, I can’t stop laughing at this! Only you would manage to accidentally germinate radish seeds in the washing machine! I guess those little seeds were so determined to grow that they took any water they could get—even laundry water!
It’s kind of beautiful, isn’t it? Life just wants to grow, even in the most unexpected places. I’m picturing those little French radishes sprouting happily alongside your freshly washed shorts. And now you’ve got a whole new experimental “washing machine germination” method to add to your gardening repertoire!
I can’t wait to hear how they do in the garden. If they survive that spin cycle, I’m pretty sure they can survive anything! 🌱✨
Hey Lisa – it is pretty funny, isn’t it? I’ll be sure to update this post in a few days with a report on how the french radishes are coming along in the garden. Crossing fingers!!
I remember when you grew tomatoes in the winter and now sprouting seeds in the washing machine! That’s an interesting gardening style you have!
Jim, nice to see you back here! Ha – it’s called thinking outside of the box, or in this case, being a bit mindless and forgetful with interesting results 🙂