Good morning all and welcome to Friday. I meant to get pack and set up a post about dialogue yesterday but I ended up getting sucked into my own writing and completely spaced on it so that post will have to wait. I don’t know about you, but I am very ready to see Friday appear. I am so ready for the weekend. It is time to start putting the fall seeds in the ground. Which seems so odd as the tomatoes are still green. The pickling cucumbers all look like fat commas though so they will start going into jars. The cold spring got everything off to a slow start. Still you didn’t come here for the garden report, so let’s jump into the morning’s writing prompt shall we?
I like this one actually. I thought given my upcoming chores and the nature of the prompt i would jump to my own garden, but it appears I have left the planet instead. Could be fun. All sorts of things could happen when colonizing a new planet. This might be one to come back to.
Friday, July 16th: In the coming year we would plant a much larger garden.
In the coming year we would plant a much larger garden. This year it was all about experimenting with the types of plants we wanted to plant. Everyone had a different opinion. Some wanted to plant more cucumbers than anything else, while others lobbied for a variety of salad greens. Peas and beans were requested. While there was plenty of space for each to have as much of their chosen plant as they desired, there were several factors that had to be considered.
The first was that we had so many types of each. There were the standard seed packets found in every store in season. There were carefully stored heirloom varieties. There were even seeds whose produce none of us had never tasted as they were rare varietals that were no longer commercially grown. Despite the lack of familiarity, the descriptions were tantalizing.
The second issue was that we had no idea what would grow here and if it did, what the effects of growing here would be. Sure the soil boasted the right balance of nutrients and we had a record of what we assumed were standard seasons, but it was an alien environment, literally.
Our ship came equipped with not only enough supplies to establish a large self-sustaining settlement, but enough food to keep us from starvation for the next five years. This, our first year was an experiment. It was the year for trial and error.
Thus far, there had been a lot of error.
For starters, while this planet was one that was studied and whose readings we recorded, it was not the planet we were initially sent to colonize. We were nearly to our destination when we were sent a message to change or coordinates and land here. We were told there would be further communication, but thus far we landed more than three weeks prior and no messages were sent.
Or if they were sent, we had not received them.
Our equipment was checked and double checked. Since we were sent here, we decided to get a start on establishing ourselves. If we were later told to rejoin the others we could always ask for a restock. Given the circumstances it would be considered an acceptable outlay and understandable to those monitoring resources. If on the other hand this proved to be our final destination, then this year would be key in sorting out expectations from reality.
Given the many unknowns, we decided to plant just a little bit of as many different types of seeds as we could. The variety would give us, hopefully enough produce to satisfy those with a craving for fresh foods and it would give us a better idea of what would in fact grow here with relative success.
It was the year of the gamble.
Once it was decided, all that was necessary was to put it into action. While our ships landed in the most convenient spots consideration now had to be given to crops. As the ships would remain our homes, if we needed to move them, we needed to do so before planting began.
Ten til Midnight 