Rachel spent the second day of her weekend studying for an Agricultural Methods practical exam. The class was currently studying how to plant and manage common grains and vegetables. There were only eight of these common plants, three grains, three root vegetables, and two leafy vegetables. Fortunately, the grains all grew using the same techniques, but the root and leafy vegetables each had their own preferred care requirements. Rachel ran those techniques through her head trying to memorize them. She even practiced going through the motions in the garden that the class had been using. It took up until late that night for Rachel to believe she was competent enough to pass the practical.
Monday was the day of the practical. Rachel was excited to be tested on her newfound knowledge but scared because it was her first test in her life. It was all thanks to George for returning her small book for the class that she was able to push herself to study and practice as much as she could. Thinking about how George keeps helping her out, made Rachel happy and sad. Happy that she had more reasons to see George, but sad that she had a huge secret she was keeping from him. But for now, Rachel needed to get out of bed, dressed, and gather her materials for her class.
The Military and Performance Arts students were already at their classes earlier in the morning, so Rachel and her fellow agricultural studies students had the whole sitting area of the eatery to themselves. Most of Rachel’s fellow students knew each other from before attending the academy and weren’t kind to outsiders, like Rachel and a few other students in the agricultural studies program. When Rachel was focused on finding the fairy, she lost the opportunity to make friends with the people in her program, but she wasn’t going to give up on making friends. She could still try approaching the other singled out students. During breakfast, she found her chance to introduce herself to those students.
The first student who was sitting alone at a table far from the cluster of students was a girl with short light brown hair and glasses. She was feverishly studying the small book in front of her. Rachel thought that maybe now wasn’t the time to disturb her and looked for the other student, a guy with long hair. He was sitting at the other end of the eatery, with no food in front of him, quietly passing the time. While Rachel began to approach him, she noticed that he was asleep. Admitting defeat Rachel, went back to the counter to grab a fruit and took a seat near the windows. Munching on the fruit reminded Rachel of Saturday when she spent lunch with George and James. She was wondering how they were doing. Looking out the window to the field she could see the Military Arts students lined up repeating sword swings. George and James were there too, leading the others in the exercises. Seeing them in leadership positions made Rachel proud to have them as her friends. But she needed to do her best, too.
Eventually, the Agricultural Methods class began, and it was time for the practical. The students were asked to split up into groups of three to complete the test. Rachel found herself grouped with the frantically studying girl and the sleeping boy from earlier. Finally, there was a reason for Rachel to befriend them.
Their teacher introduced the assignment they were to complete by the end of the class time, “Each group will be assigned one of the eight common plants and will be tasked with planting it in a pot that I’ll take back to my office. If the plant sprouts within the plant’s germination time without any watering on my part, the group will pass. You all will not be allowed the use of your texts.”
Rachel and her groupmates looked at each other. This task seemed harder than what Rachel was imagining yesterday. It was requiring ingenuity in addition to knowledge about the plants. But first Rachel needed to know how to address her teammates.
“Hello, my name is Rachel. What are your names?” She asked.
“Hi, I’m Nathan,” Nathan said quietly.
“I’m … Tina,” Tina replied nervously.
Rachel, Nathan, and Tina waited patiently to receive their common plant seeds from the teacher. While they were waiting, they began to hear a commotion from the other students that the teacher had visited. Apparently, they were only going to be given the seeds and not the name of the plant. The teacher finally dropped off their seeds and the three students stared at them for a minute and looked at each other to see who knew what they were. They were small and black seeds. Rachel immediately knew what plants they weren’t.
“I know what the two plants these seeds could belong to,” Rachel said immediately.
“Okay, which ones?” Nathan asked.
“It’s the two leafy vegetables, lettuce and basil,” She replied.
“How do we tell which one it is?” Tina asked.
“If I remember correctly if you soak basil seeds in water, they become gooey,” Nathan replied.
“We should do that because even if they are lettuce seeds, we should soak them in water before planting them to encourage them to sprout,” Rachel suggested.
Tina grabbed some water from the waterspout outside with a pitcher. Rachel placed the seeds in a cup, while Nathan preemptively began gathering the pot and other useful materials and tools from around the class together. When Tina returned with the water, Rachel told her to gently pour a little bit of it over the seeds in the cup. After a few minutes, Rachel pressed her finger into the cup to feel for any gooey texture, it was gooey. She told Tina to try it too so she would know what it felt like for future reference. When Nathan finished gathering the supplies, he also touched the gooey seeds agreeing with what Rachel and Tina had already confirmed.
“Okay, so we have basil seeds, now what?” Tina asked.
“Well, they germinate pretty quickly,” Rachel replied. “So, we can be sure that they will germinate, but if anything, we don’t want them to die just after they germinate, just in case. Basil doesn’t like too much water, so we can’t waterlog the soil.”
“We have to engineer the pot to gradually water the soil, is what you are saying,” Nathan said understanding the real task at hand. He picked up the pot and looked at the bottom of it. It didn’t even have a hole in it. If they tried to create a hole, they might accidentally break the pot. He didn’t think they would be allowed to have another one, seeing as there was exactly one pot per group.
“We could create a pool of water at the bottom to serve as the water source,” Tina offered. “There just needs to be some rocks between the soil and the water to adjust how much water the soil absorbs.”
“I think that would work, but maybe we should test it just in case with the time we have left in class,” Rachel suggested.
“Okay, Tina pour some water, I’ll grab some stones, and Rachel you grab the soil,” Nathan directed.
The group put together their pot and waited ten minutes, before checking how much water was in the soil. The soil which was completely dry before being placed into the pot was dry at the top but completely soaked midway through, with no water pooling at the bottom.
“I think we didn’t do this right; the soil is completely soaked midway through,” Rachel admitted.
“Well, the soil was completely dry, it probably soaked all the water up because of that, if that’s what caused it, adding more water, and waiting to see if it moistens the top layer of soil should tell us if it’s working or not,” Nathan concluded.
“Okay, I’ll add more water,” Tina said. “Rachel could you use the shovel to push the soil out of the way so I can add the water down the side. I don’t want to get any more of the soil wet.”
“Sure. Okay, I’ll hold the soil back,” Rachel said while Tina poured the water down the side of the pot. When she was done, Rachel removed the shovel, and they waited another ten or so minutes before checking the soil for its wetness. Nathan poked through the top of the soil and noticed that this time more water was past the midway section, but the top part wasn’t wet. Digging around towards the bottom, revealed water beneath the rocks.
“Okay, Rachel what do you think? The water is soaked midway through, but there is still water below the rocks,” Nathan asked seeking approval.
“Yea, I think this will work. But we might need to dampen the top just a little when planting the seeds,” Rachel suggested.
Nathan used the shovel to dig a few little holes for the seeds. When he poured the seeds with the water into one hole, the group could see the gooey membrane surrounding the seeds. He then used a spoon to grab the other seeds and move them to the other holes. Tina refilled the cup that recently contained the seeds with water and sprinkled it over the other holes, to make sure that the seeds had plenty of water to encourage germination. Finally, Nathan replaced the soil over the seeds, and after checking with Rachel they were done with planting the seeds. But Rachel figured they should add one more thing to their pot.
“Do you guys think we should add a tag to our pot?” Rachel asked, “Firstly it should be identifiably ours, but since we are completely sure what plant the seeds belong to, we can suggest the pot’s owner, our teacher, how much sun it should get.”
“I don’t see the harm in doing that,” Nathan agreed.
“I’ll make the sign,” Tina offered. She grabbed a wooden stake and with ink and a thin brush wrote the three group members' names and ‘Place in full sun.’, after asking Nathan and Rachel how much sun basil plants need. Tina then placed the stake in the soil near the edge of the pot. When the three group members were confident of their work, they placed the pot in the hands of their teacher. He was surprised at how quickly they finished and after inspecting the pot, pleasantly surprised by their note left in the pot. Since they completed their task the group was permitted to leave early.
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