In the Garden Warrior Queen’s kingdom, bartering is alive and well.
A neighbor stopped by recently — she admired our sunflowers, we admired her marigolds — and before I knew it, we were trading like it was the village market of old. She handed over a handful of dried marigold deadheads, and I gave her some of my cherished sunflower seedlings.
What I didn’t realize was that those deadheads held enough seeds to plant marigolds for the next five years.
Enter Sir-Sprinkles-a-Lot, bless his enthusiastic gardener heart, he didn’t know either. He took one look at the pile and thought, “Seeds go in dirt,” and sprinkled them everywhere; here, there, across the beds, into the wind, probably into another ZIP code.
Now I’m walking around the kingdom trying to figure out what’s a tomato and what’s a marigold. The marigolds eventually get a purple stem, but until then it’s a daily mystery game.
But honestly? I kind of love it. The garden feels alive, surprising, full of little green secrets popping up in unexpected places. And every time I spot a new marigold sprout, I think of that neighborly barter — and Sir-Sprinkles-a-Lot’s unintentional marigold confetti storm.
The kingdom is blooming in ways I never planned, and it’s perfect.