Sailor grows seeds on the high seas

Navy News / June 30, 2021

By Petty Officer 2nd Class John Reid McDougall

HMCS Halifax

When I was getting ready to leave for my deployment overseas with the Royal Canadian Navy (RCN) in Her Majesty’s Canadian Ship (HMCS) Halifax on Operation Reassurance, my partner asked if I would like to bring some plants with me. Our spider plant had a brand new shoot and it was going to need to be replanted soon anyway. So in preparation for the deployment, I got a small glass jar and put some soil in it and planted it. I was going to bring it with me and have a little piece of home with me while I was away.

I took some clippings of some succulents we had as well. The day we were leaving I put them in my office – the Flight Deck Control Room of HMCS Halifax. They were a nice touch and a way to stay centred and have something to focus my energy on that wasn’t work.

Then one day at sea I ate a mango. When I cut into it, it was perfectly ripe. When I finished eating it all that was left was the pit and peel. I was reminded of a Tik Tok trend where people would shampoo, wash, brush and blow dry a mango pit to make it look all fuzzy and cute. And that got me curious to see what was inside the pit. I had never opened one up or seen what a mango seed looked like. So I did! Once I saw the seed, I knew I had to try to grow it. That was as far as my planning went.

We had been gone from home since January 1, 2021, and it was now February. I had no dirt, planters or any idea what I was doing. I wrapped the mango seed in a damp paper towel and put it in a plastic bag inside my desk. There it stayed and there it grew, just like my thoughts about what else I could grow and how I could get dirt and a planter. The planter part was easy – I’m a creative person so I decided to build my own planters. After considering building one out of wood, I settled on plexiglas. By building a simple five-sided rectangular prism, I was set. I had my first planter!

Now that I had a place for my seeds to call home, I figured I needed more plants. This got my mind racing thinking about what else I could plant; maybe in port I could find some plants on the jetties? It wasn’t spring yet so that idea went out the window pretty quick. Then it hit me: fruit! I ate green apples to get their seeds, watermelon, peas, cantaloupe, nectarines, more mangos, dragon fruit, garlic and avocado. I had all these seeds germinating in my desk for weeks, adding more seeds every day and figuring out what seeds germinated best.

It was an awesome experiment which motivated me and got me excited for the day. Each morning I was checking to see which seeds sprouted and this became a morning ritual. Every piece of fruit I ate I wondered if these seeds would grow. The nectarines were the trickiest fruit because like mangos they have an outer shell so it is only once you get through that will you know that there is a seed in there that will be healthy enough to potentially grow. I don't know how many I ate just to see if the seed was worth trying to grow; none grew more than a sprout. I tried to predict the potential of the seed based on what the outside looked like but I couldn’t find a correlation. These seeds sat in my desk for weeks.

The apple seeds had sprouted and were getting ready to be planted. The only thing that was stopping me was the small fact I didn’t have any soil – a really tough thing to come by at sea. The next port we were going to was in Poland. How was I going to get soil there? Should I risk the potential there will be dirt on the jetty? It was the beginning of March and still pretty cold out – would I need a shovel? My safest bet was to use our support staff ashore, so I contacted them and arranged for them to buy a bag of soil. I was pleasantly surprised that this was actually possible during the strict COVID-19 quarantine rules we were under.

My seeds had sprouted, I had built a planter and now I had soil! It was time to plant my trees. Nine apple seeds had germinated to the point they were ready to plant. So I planted them in three rows of three. I told everyone who would listen that I had just planted an orchard! No one believed me or they thought I was full of it. They had to see it to believe it. I was blown away that I had apple trees growing in my office on board a Navy ship. It was such an accomplishment. I was hooked; I couldn’t wait for the other seeds to be ready to plant.

By this time, I had three mango seeds germinating in my desk along with all the other seeds. I knew that I was going to need another planter. I got to building and made another one. With plenty of dirt left over, I filled the other planter and waited for my seeds to be ready. At this point my spider plant was starting to outgrow its small glass jar so I transplanted it to a bigger one. In the process I found a perfect jar to grow my avocado seed. It already had a little crack in it so it was ready for some water. I did the old toothpick trick for the avocado to suspend it in water.

Being on a moving platform, I had to take into account the movement of the ship and had to make sure the water wasn’t too high up the jar to spill over. It was a delicate balancing act that thankfully I perfected early on. Now that my garden was really starting to take off, people would come up and visit it and look at it in amazement that there were apple trees growing on a warship. When we were allowed to have other NATO ships visit ours, a favorite stop to show the visiting sailors was my garden. As far as I know mine is the only garden in NATO.

I had no way of knowing the impact my garden would have on myself or my fellow shipmates. I set out with no goal in mind, just a spark of curiosity and wonder to see if it could actually be done. I didn’t just grow a garden, I grew a new life and purpose into an already difficult deployment. Being deployed during the COVID-19 pandemic with limited or no port visits is much more challenging than previous deployments.

With my garden, I found the importance of self-care, having a hobby, having patience and having something to care for. And most importantly, a little piece of home. It has been so amazing to be the source of people’s amazement, curiosity and joy. The garden never fails to be the initial source of a conversation that can go off in many directions with my shipmates. I don’t know if these conversations would have developed without my nine apple trees.

Implementing an idea like this has been a great exercise and such a powerful metaphor for what we face when we leave on a long deployment. We are at sea for weeks on end. We need to be self-sufficient, only being able to work with what we have and creating our own happiness, and fostering motivation to keep ourselves focused on our jobs. But also having an escape where you can recharge your battery in a positive and healthy way.

This whole experience has been very positive for me and has made a huge difference as to how I feel about my life aboard ship during a NATO deployment. It has naturally evolved into me becoming a more integral and more engaged member of the ship's community, and bringing joy to the people around me has given me a sense of purpose that I didn’t have at the outset of this deployment.

By creating something beautiful out of nothing, I have inspired hope and a sense that trusting in the process and nurturing ourselves along the way, any one of us has the ability to not just endure and survive a deployment, but to grow and thrive during our seven months at sea.