Going to Japan with the Governor

Serving as long-term mission volunteers at ARI. Friendship. Farming. Inspiration.

The Parable of the Onion Seed

“What parable can I use to explain it? Consider a mustard seed. When scattered on the ground, it’s the smallest of all the seeds on the earth; but when it is planted, it grows and becomes the largest of all vegetable plants.” Mark 4:30-32. Respectfully I beg to differ with Jesus.

This past week the Farm team planted onion seeds in the greenhouse.

The greenhouse at ARI.
Inside the greenhouse. The yellow sections have been planted and are covered in rice chaff for protection.

Onion seeds are incredibly small and triangular. (If you have had an onion bagel that had small black seeds in top, those are the onion seeds.)

A bowl of onion 🧅 seeds.

We plant the seeds one at a time by placing them one centimeter apart in rows spaced 8 centimeters apart. See if you can find them in the pictures below.

Here is a row of planted onion seeds. Can you spot them?
Here is a slightly closer view showing four seeds.

We then lightly cover the seeds with dirt. It is tedious work.

Planting the last section.
A group of volunteers hard at work planting onion seeds. This group of volunteers includes a woman from the US, a Japanese priest, a missionary from Togo, an organic farmer from Canada, and a German student in gap year.
The finished product hanging around outside the kitchen.
We eat a lot of onions at ARI.

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Comments

One response to “The Parable of the Onion Seed”

  1. joy977abcbbbe89 Avatar
    joy977abcbbbe89

    This must be very rewarding; to see the outcome of the tedious work.

    Like

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