Standing by the kitchen counter, I stared at the very ripe strawberries in the ceramic bowl. Three pieces of them, and one in my mouth. All of a sudden, I had a flashback of a video I saw on social media on how to grow strawberries from the seeds in the fruit. In the timelapse video, it was uncomplicated, and an urge of trying it out grew in me. I thinly carved out the strawberry skin where the seeds were attached, laid them flat on a piece of kitchen paper which I then folded into half to prevent dust from building up. I kept it on a shelf in the laundry room, it’s drier there with dehumidifier on all the time. Sticking on the kitchen paper, the flesh dried wrinkly in just a few days, and the seeds could be easily rubbed off with my fingertip. So, I collected over a dozen of strawberry seeds. Looking at the seeds smaller than sesame seeds in my palm, I wondered whether any fruit could really grow from them. It wouldn’t be this easy, right? So I thought. I found a shallow plastic tub in my recycle bin, took a pair of scissors to poke a few holes on the bottom, laid it with soil and sprinkle the strawberry seeds on it. After watering the soil, I covered the tub with its lid and put it somewhere half shady. I heard it didn’t need loads of sunlight to germinate.
And it was early Summer.
A week had gone and then two weeks. I wasn’t sure if the technique was wrong or the soil, the seeds just did not germinate. I checked it out every day, every other day, and then, whenever I remembered. It just slipped away from my mind, until one day, I caught a glimpse of a hue of green under the plastic lid blanketed in condensation. I thought it was moss. When I opened the lid, what I found was teeny tiny leaves of pale green sprouting from the soil. Bitsy and delicate, I had to breathe gently otherwise they would be blown away, so I thought. The sprouts grew taller every day and I kept watering them. And, I was aware that, I should repot them into a larger pot for the roots to grow, but I had been procrastinating.
Acute procrastinator. The more important the matter, the harder I find it hard to start. Sometimes, I even had to drag myself to do daily matters like vacuuming, putting away fresh laundry or handling bank documents. I used to think that my procrastination comes from the laziness in me and habitual behaviour from the past. So, without a ground though, I tried and tried to rectify. In these few years, a sense of stillness and quietness has grown in me, allowing myself to listen what is deep in my heart. And, I realised my procrastination is rooted from fear – fear not doing good enough and unwilling to face results unmatched my expectation. Procrastinating on repotting the strawberry sprouts probably stemmed from worrying that no fruit will be borne despite the effort put in planting.
I was talking about this expectation to self and the fallacy with a friend, he said it may be ego at play. I define what is “not good enough”. I get fixated into an idea myself. It’s all me. It is a proposition that is lengthy to discuss and should be written on another day. But what my friend said indeed woke me up in some sense. It didn’t instantly relieve me from the problem but with a direction, it should be easier to work on. I get it, what I think is not real and I am scared by my own imagination but it’s easier said than done. All I can do is to keep reminding myself on the spur of the procrastination moment and start small, step by step.
I bought a big bag of soil home, placed some in a pot, gently unrooted the sprouts and pot them up. Next, I repotted my small osmanthus tree, snow rose and various plants. I also sowed cat grass seeds into two tubs of soil. The plants were growing happily; the osmanthus tree bloomed a few days later, and my cat followed me to the balcony every day to enjoy the cat grass. Autumn has commenced and white dew is coming soon. I thought I had missed the best season to grow fruit in Summer but, just today, I found out strawberries actually grow in winter here.
Dissolve the gelatin powder into 1 cup of boiling water and pour the mixture into a container. Add the osmanthus syrup into the measuring cup, pour hot water into the cup and fill it up to 1 cup. Stir well until the syrup dissolves. Pour it through a sieve into the gelatin mixture and mix well. Refrigerate overnight.
Wash and dry the strawberries, quarter the fruit and mix it with the honey wine.
Scoop some osmanthus jelly onto a shallow plate, top it with the strawberries, and zest the lime.
Jo Liu
It’s raining outside, crisp and bleak. Three chubby sparrows took shelter on my balcony and I gave them the baguette bits left on my breakfast plate but they flew away. I stayed in, played Damien Rice on vinyl and made apple crumble. Repeat.
