A Mustard Seed — Planting

We’ve all heard the proverbial saying about "faith the size of a mustard seed" moving mountains. But as a gardener, I’m less interested in the metaphor and more interested in the miracle. You can read that quote in a book a hundred times, but you won’t understand it until you drop one of those specks into a pot of dirt and watch what happens next.

Here is why planting a mustard seed is the most rewarding, chaotic, and delicious gardening project you’ll start this season. Most vegetables take forever. You plant a tomato in May and pray for a BLT by August. Mustard? Mustard is the caffeine shot of the garden. planting a mustard seed

Take ten of them. Put them in a pot. Water them. We’ve all heard the proverbial saying about "faith

In three days, you will see a tiny green hook emerge from the soil. And I promise you, when you see that tiny hook splitting that tiny seed, you will feel like you could move a mountain. Here is why planting a mustard seed is

If you harvest them when they are small (2-3 inches), they taste like wasabi arugula. Perfect on a steak sandwich. If you let them get large, they taste like fire, but you can sauté them in bacon fat to mellow them into a savory Southern side dish. I know I said I wouldn’t focus on the metaphor, but I have to.

There is something almost laughable about a mustard seed. Hold one in the palm of your hand, and you’ll barely feel it. It looks like a speck of reddish-brown dust. It is, botanically speaking, a overachiever with an inferiority complex.

But the mustard seed doesn't try to be an oak tree. It just grows. It takes the tiny amount of resources it has—a thimble of water, a crack of sunlight—and it explodes with life anyway.