As much as I was enjoying getting to eat my Grandpa Masco’s pecans from last season, I decided to save some to try to get even more enjoyment out of them in the future.

All Winter, I stored pecans from last year’s harvest inside my seed bank fridge. When late-February finally came, I soaked my pecan stash in buckets of water for 24-hours.

The following morning, I put all the pecans into three re-purposed storage tote bins and barely covered them with soil – like the squirrels do🤷🏾‍♀️. I’ve never grown pecan trees from seed, so it seemed wise to mimic nature as much as possible.

Nearly two months later, my first pecan tree seedling emerged🤩.

It was tiny, but it gave me the biggest boost of confidence that I wasn’t wasting space and time. I moved the pecan bins underneath growlights in my germination chamber (aka “walk-in closet”). When a pecan seed sprouts, I remove it from the bin and pot it to continue growing.

My pecan project has required a lot of planning, patience, and effort, but this was WAY BETTER than eating all those pecans. I wanted pecan trees to plant on my farm and, gosh, did I receive them. So far, I have 18 pecan trees because my Grandpa Masco thought enough of his family and his community to plant three pecan trees back in 1950. Grateful isn’t even the word🥹.