Three years ago the roof of our building was an empty space where nobody went. Then Mrs. Huang, who is seventy, carried up two pots and planted some beans. (11) By the end of that summer, six families had pots of their own. Now there are tomatoes in one corner and flowers along the wall. A spider lives between two pots, and nobody takes it down, (12) it keeps the small insects away. Children come up after school to look for it. (13), the roof is the only place in the building where every floor meets. Her husband helped her carry the pots. She says his plan was only to use the space, (14) a garden turned out to be about people.
A seed looks dead. You can keep one in a drawer for years and nothing will happen. (15) Water, heat, and dark together tell the seed that it is under the ground, and only then does it open. Some seeds wait far longer than a year. In England a seed found in an old building grew after two hundred years in a box. (16) nobody had given it water. Farmers have used this fact for a long time. They keep seeds dry so that the seeds stay asleep, (17) they can choose the day when growth begins. A seed is not really sleeping. It is waiting, (18) waiting is a kind of work.