For Julia Newton, there is always something interesting to learn about seeds.

Newton, community and teaching garden coordinator at Seeds of Hope Wilson, misses having the opportunity to share those informational nuggets with the students at nearby Vick Elementary School.

Like nearly every other school, business and organization, Seeds of Hope has endured disruption from the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Social distancing requirements made it hard for the nonprofit to accomplish one of its main missions, to help schoolchildren get a better grasp on where their food comes from.

“This was a program we started, but it got cut off by COVID. I think it was the first day school closed that we were supposed to have the kindergartners through second graders over and learn about seeds, and we wanted to just show them different kinds of seeds,” Newton said.

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Newton was all ready for them in March. She repurposed a pair of ice trays to display different kinds of seeds — from watermelon to wax gourd, blue corn to bell pepper.

“It’s fun to smell seeds,” Newton said. “Dill smells like dill, and lavender smells like lavender.”

Newton wishes she could show the children that every bean has a belly button. 

“It’s called an omphalos, and that’s where the seed was connected to the pod,” Newton said. “I think it’s fun that beans have a belly button.”

Newton looks forward to the day when it’s safe to return children to the community garden. 

“Someday we’ll get them back here,” Newton said. “It’s been really frustrating for us at Seeds of Hope because we want to have those kids in the garden. We want to teach them. It’s been hard. Everybody has to feel safe before we can those kinds of things again and right now, it is totally unclear when that is going to be.”

PLANTING FROM SEED

On Jan. 2, Newton planted seeds for the early garden. Broccoli and lettuce seedlings had started poking through the soil by Jan. 5. 

The organization’s community garden is at the corner of Viola and Carroll streets, across from Vick Elementary School.

There are many reasons to start things from seed, Newton said. For one, it’s a little bit less expensive. 

“If you buy a pack of seeds for $3, there might be 200 seeds in there,” Newton said. “That same $3 will buy you four started plants.”

Another advantage to starting by seed is that growers can peruse seed catalogs for less common varities, like heirloom seeds or seeds that come from another culture.

“At Seeds of Hope, we work with a lot of Mexican gardeners, and so we have really concentrated on Mexican varieties of squashes and chiles and tomatoes, tomatillos and all kinds of herbs, so that has been really exciting,” Newton said.

Seeds of Hope has three growing seasons: early spring, summer and fall.  

“The things that we started from seed are lettuce, collards, kale, cabbages and some herbs like chamomile, cilantro and colendula,” Newton said. 

In mid-February, the seedlings will be transplanted and another round of seeds will be planted directly into the garden for potatoes, carrots, turnips, mustard greens and other crops.

SMALL PLOTS AND POTS

People can start small gardens easily, whether they’re in backyard plots, windowsill pots or out on a sunny patio.

It can be a little intimidating to start the process, but new growers can refer to free horticultural cheat sheets from the N.C. Cooperative Extention office in Wilson County.

“They can give you handouts about gardening,” Newton said. “One of the most important tools that we use is a planting calendar. It’s for our area and it is very clear. It shows you what the crop is, how many days to harvest, the distance between plants, when the plant it, whether to plant direct seeds or plant seedlings. It is a treasure to have.”