Posted by Lieutenant Luke Wyatt (Chief of Security) in Deck 4 Garden- Sowing Seeds

Posted by Lieutenant Faye Calloway (Mission Specialist) in Deck 4 Garden- Sowing Seeds

Posted by Lieutenant Luke Wyatt (Chief of Security) in Deck 4 Garden- Sowing Seeds
Posted by… suppressed (1) by the Post Ghost! 👻

(snip)

She smirked at the mention of the coffee table. Okay, so they had gotten carried away and had been a little too… energetic. But it was half the fun. Gesturing with her head, Faye moved towards the greenhouse.

Having similar thoughts going through his mind Luke followed Faye towards the greenhouse, he wasn’t lying when he said he hadn’t gotten it replaced yet and also he wanted to see her in her natural environment besides the Arbertum and her office.

In front of the greenhouse, Faye leaned her shovel up against it, intending to put it away after. Stepping inside, the space had a slightly warmer temp and humidity but it wasn’t uncomfortable. There was also an overhead fan circulating air and stepping made you realize that there was a breeze in the main garden too that was only apparent in a different space. In the middle were a couple large worktables with shelves underneath that housed supplies and the entire perimeter of the greenhouse was lined with metal wirework top tables that could withstand being watered upon and wouldn’t disintegrate. The clear glass structure and roof allowed all the simulated daylight to pass through the plants growing inside and as you looked closer the half wall that came just above the seedling tables had little ID tags with a number and letter corresponding to each plot in the raised bed sections. A whole separate table was also set aside for the botanical staff’s use only.

“Okay, your plot is Four-B and there is a spot there for your seedling trays,” Faye explained. “The seeds we’re going to use are my own and I just know all the info off the top of my head, so what I’m going to do later is upload some basic care notes and instruction to your plot’s file. The terminal just outside the greenhouse where I assigned the plot to you is also how you can access those notes. It includes a planting, growing and harvesting calendar as a guideline, plus I’ll include some really basic gardening tips to get your started and you can use your access to send that to yourself on the internal network so you can look things up and read in your quarters or whatever. Make sense?”

~Faye Calloway

Luke nodded along taking mental notes of everything she was explaining to him, it was exactly this reason he knew they could work. Being able to seemingly slip back into a normal conversation without physical contact and lust. “No that makes a lot of sense, surprisingly.” He began to point to the few things she had explained, “Plot Four-B. seedling trays for yours truly, Terminal outside with notes you’re kindly giving me and harvesting tips, tricks and Calendar.” He gave one confirmatory nod. “Understood, so shall we plant some seeds!

• Lt Luke Wyatt

She grinned. “Yep.” Faye crouched down beside one of the worktables and began pulling up supplies. Faye grabbed two of everything they needed: a large square plastic tub, a bag of some sort of soil, planting trays with different sized vessels, long flat trays with no holes and a small trowels. “Okay, so this is pretty basic but there are a couple tricks to make is easier and more effective. First off, seeds are tiny so you want to be all set up and ready to go so you don’t have to fiddle with seeds, put them down, fiddle, pick them back up and so on. So we’re going to prep the soil first. GO ahead and open that zippered bag of seed starting mix and pour a bunch into each tub for both of us. About half-way should do it.,” Faye said as she stepped to the side.

Watching Faye assemble the required items he wonders if he was going to be growing some plants or starting his own science experiment. When she was done explaining what and why they were doing things he opened the Zip lock bag as instructed and carefully poured the contents into each tub making sure he didn’t overfill them until they were each roughly half way. “Done, that wasn’t so difficult.” Ofcourse he knew there was more to come.

Grabbing a watering can, she went to the other side of the greenhouse and filled it at a sink set up. When she returned, she set the watering can on the table and dipped her hand into the soil and let it fall gentle from her fingertips. “So as you can see, this stuff is quite fine and light. Unlike the stuff in the beds, it’s been sieved to remove anything chunky that might make the delicate roots of the seedlings struggle to establish themselves. Some plants don’t care, but others are sensitive about hw they start out. And because this is so fluffy, it’s easier to wet it before we put it in the trays, because then we can place our seeds exactly where we want them and we don’t risk dislodging them when we water.”

“Rihhyok that makes sense, making it easier for the seeds to establish in a finer dirt” He said committing the explanation for future reference of he was going to start more. “So how much water should we be putting into the fine dirt?” He asked looking between her and the trays.

“So I’m going to mix this at first with a trowel, but I want you to pour some water on top of mine. Not too quickly thought,” Faye said, sliding the tub between them.

He nodded to acknowledge her instructions and watched her carefully, he didn’t want to mess this up when it was his turn to do some watering. She made it sound seemingly easy but he knew there would be more to it than sieving some dirt, getting it wet and popping in some seeds. Realising though he was meant to be watering he picked up the little watering alliance and slowly began pouring water into the tubs.

After he poured, Faye stirred up the mix. “And a little bit more.”

He was trying not to let his hands shake but sometimes it would do that especially when he was trying to be delicate with something, he managed to keep it together as slowly the water filled little more.

“Now, I want you to reach in and grab a handful and give it a moderate squeeze. You want it to hold it’s shape when you open your hand, but you don’t want it too wet that water drips out. You let me know how it feels and we’ll go form there,” Faye said, clearly in teaching mode.

~Faye Calloway

Luke popped the watering appliance on the side and scooped up some dirt in his hands, her could feel the moisture and he squeezed the dirt . No water ran down his palm but when he opened his hand the dirt didn’t quiet hold its shape. He placed the dirt back Into the tub and added a little more water repeating the scooping and squeezing action until finally it was how she’d describe, no water dropping and the dirt holding its shape. He showed her the ball of dirt with a smile. “Whats next?” He asked eagerly.

• Luke Wyatt

Faye gave him a smile and nod of approval. “Okay, so-” she dragged over the planting trays-“now we are going to fill these with soil. These trays fit 12 plants and you won’t need all of them, so I’m going to let you include some of the chillies I need for my bed in your and we’ll separate them out later.” She gazed at him reassuringly. “So there’s are ways this can go wrong, but at the end of the day, they’re just seeds. If they don’t make it, we start again and we’ve lost time, yes, but learned a lot in the process, okay?”

She set a ray in front of each of them and took the tub of soil, dumping it across the whole thing. “Don’t be afraid to push the soil firmly into the cells. We want to eliminate air pockets as much as possible.” When she was done filling it, she levelled off the top, sweeping the excess soil back into the tub.

“Now, let’s rinse off and dry our hands and I’ll show you some thing special,” Faye said, heading for the sink. There were paper towels beside it plus a bucket below for the used ones that would go into the compost as brown matter.

Back at the bench, Faye reached into her cargo pocket and pulled out the seeds. “Okay, hold out your hand, cupping it slightly.”

Carefully opening the top of one of the seed packets, Faye carefully poured some of the seeds into her hand. She plucked one single seed and set it in Luke’s hand, smiling deeply. The seed was slightly oval in shape and flat around the edges with a bulge in the centre and was only a couple millimetres wide. “That there is a miracle of nature, Luke. Inside that seed contains all the information the plant needs to replicate its cells. From that tiny seed we’re going to grow a chilli plant that will have upwards of fifty chillies on it. Think about that for a moment. And all it requires from us is the basics of life- light and water- and a little care. Yes, we’re going to fertilize these for best production, but even if we didn’t, it would still do alright.”

~Faye Calloway