Take ten of them. Put them in a pot. Water them.
If you harvest them when they are small (2-3 inches), they taste like wasabi arugula. Perfect on a steak sandwich. If you let them get large, they taste like fire, but you can sauté them in bacon fat to mellow them into a savory Southern side dish. I know I said I wouldn’t focus on the metaphor, but I have to.
But the mustard seed doesn't try to be an oak tree. It just grows. It takes the tiny amount of resources it has—a thimble of water, a crack of sunlight—and it explodes with life anyway.
We’ve all heard the proverbial saying about "faith the size of a mustard seed" moving mountains. But as a gardener, I’m less interested in the metaphor and more interested in the miracle. You can read that quote in a book a hundred times, but you won’t understand it until you drop one of those specks into a pot of dirt and watch what happens next.
There is something almost laughable about a mustard seed. Hold one in the palm of your hand, and you’ll barely feel it. It looks like a speck of reddish-brown dust. It is, botanically speaking, a overachiever with an inferiority complex.
Planting a mustard seed is an act of faith in small beginnings. It is proof that you do not need a massive budget or a green thumb to create abundance. You just need to start. Go to the spice aisle of your grocery store. Buy the $2 jar of whole yellow mustard seeds. (Yes, the same ones you use for hot dogs. They aren't treated; they will grow.)
We spend so much time feeling like we don’t have enough. Not enough money, not enough time, not enough skill. We think we need a "big" seed to grow a "big" result.