Sunshine and Sunflowers

Sunflowers and lettuce seeds delivered in the sunshine, with tea and chocolate to help with planting

I'm a little late with my #NationalGardeningWeek post this year because my head's been full of making it happen for other people. We've put together cards and some small gifts for all our WI members this week and I suggested we give everyone some seeds to grow, so our gift keeps on giving. Now I'd like to say the timing was all planned, but actually serendipity played a huge part 😉

Luckily my stash had enough 'Russian Giant' seeds for us to have a tallest sunflower competition, and just one packet of lettuce 'Merveille des Quatre Saisons' yielded around 1500 seeds (the packet said approx 900) to divvy up. Everything was duly delivered yesterday in the sunshine and the response from everyone is full of smiles. Many sowed their seeds yesterday, so I'm playing catch up already.

A sneak peek behind the scenes at Botanical Interests in Boulder, Colorado

My friend Judy from Botanical Interests* often says 'It all starts with a seed'. In these strange lockdown times, I'm happy to add they also help to sustain our friendships.

* = the company also came to my rescue as I ran out of little seed envelopes, then I remembered there were some of theirs in the stash I won at last year's Garden Bloggers Fling. There were exactly the number I needed 😊

Mr Fothergills and Lemon Tree trust

Regular readers know I've enjoyed my visits to the trials site at Mr Fothergills in previous years. Sadly this year's event is cancelled, but instead I'm happy to see their support for the Lemon Tree Trust's Emergency Appeal for seeds as part of National Gardening Week. Seeing how happy my WI friends are with their seeds, I can well imagine how transformative the gift of seeds are in a refugee camp setting.

I need no further excuse to top up my seed stash from their website today, safe in the knowledge my purchases will result in an equivalent donation of seed packets to the Trust. It's another way of adding a little sunshine somewhere in these times.

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