Risa – Toronto/Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation, Mississauga and Chippewa Nations of the Williams Treaty and part of the traditional territories of the Haudenosaunee and the Huron Wendat

Peas Mix, Sweer CA Wonder Pepper, Sunflower, Rye (summer 2025)

I don’t know how it slipped my mind (I do, but it’s not worth going in to here), but I did not plant the potager seeds until today, June 7th. As I write this, with dirty fingernails, robins and a woodpecker are keeping me company and I can hear our resident groundhog under the deck.

The peas may fare okay if the temperatures remain cool a bit longer. I never sow successively even when I want to, and this counts. I had dumped four packets in three quadrants so yours went into the fourth. It gets the least sun and rainfall, and I am hoping that with shade they won’t fry in the heat.

Since that 20 degree day in April 2009 I have planted a veggie patch in a corner of my mom’s suburban Toronto property. Each year I feel so rewarded by the small prizes it yields and joy in sharing these with family and friends. Some years I am more attentive to weeding and pairings. Others less. Every year it is true that I get better at building chicken wire enclosures to keep out the wildlife. For several years one strawberry plant did not thrive. I scooped it up and moved it to the sunniest corner and now it is trying to take over.

I usually plant potatoes in the space outside the enclosure, under the kitchen window. I could not find any this year so put in too many unhardened tomato seedlings in. Most are not thriving and this is where I put your gifted sunflower seeds. It is the sunniest spot, and I hope they will grow and flower and take over.

I put your peppers in the spot where I had put several old years of string beans my mom has harvested and dried. Like yours, they were organically grown in my potager, and as of today I can only see one has sprouted… nothing is guaranteed to produce, is it?

One year, Yvonne Singer suggested I could just toss seeds randomly, that organizing neat rows is less fun. I think she is right, but I suspect when I have tried, I may have pulled some unfamiliar sprouts in weeding frenzies.

If the peppers thrive I will need to rely on my elderly mom to climb the enclosure to harvest them, surely they will not mature before I head back west. And again, I will miss the best weeks of tomatoes in early September. But I will eat those peas barefooted on dewy mornings, and I will learn about how to plant the rye.

I love gardening and thinking about seeds and land and connection and exchange with you. These seeds and our connections are comforting. Thank you.