Once upon a time, there was a strawberry plant that grew out of a pacifier!
You’re probably asking yourself, 'How is that possible?'
But it's the truth.
A year ago, our granddaughter - three years old at the time - was struggling to give up the comfort of the pacifier when she went to bed at night. Our son and daughter-in-law tried everything, but the resourceful toddler was a master negotiator. She managed to get it back every time.
One day, our daughter-in-law came up with an idea that she says she found on the Internet. The story went that when a pacifier was planted in soil, strawberry plants grew up from it.
Our granddaughter LOVES gardening. She’s the child who saves the seeds of everything she eats because she wants to plant them in the garden. And she is incredibly smart, so I think this whole scenario of going along with it was actually just to humor the parents and the grandparents. Nevertheless, she painted a clay pot as an activity, then put dirt in it and planted the pacifier two inches down. Add water.
The next morning, there was no plant yet, but miraculously, a strawberry sat on top of the soil. Much excitement ensued. So the next day and the next day for the rest of their visit with us, strawberries appeared every morning!
Good thing she wasn’t up at five am. She would have caught her father running from the fridge to the pot, arranging strawberries.
Anyway, the method worked. The pacifier habit was broken.
But once the kids went home, we couldn’t let the pacifier plant go, so we repotted the pacifier and put a strawberry plant in there. When she looks closely, she'll be able to see it in one of the holes in the new pot. And what do you know, strawberries are maturing just in time for our granddaughter’s upcoming visit.
Now how about you? What kind of unusual things have you planted in your garden?