The May 2026 issue of our Gather and Sow newsletter is out.

Coconut palms grow some of the biggest seeds on the planet, and vanilla seeds, from an orchid, are among the smallest. They are both delicious! They are also the subjects of this month’s newsletter. Just in time for Mother’s Day (May 10th this year), in this month’s Food for Thought essay (“Coconuts for Mother’s Day”), we make the case that Mother’s Day celebrations should include more coconut. The large seed size of coconuts, and the small size of orchid seeds, are indicative of their respective parenting philosophy. In this month’s Botany Lab of the Month we describe coconut and vanilla fruit and seed morphology in the course of making cookies (“Extreme Monocot Cookies”). The newsletter concludes with Gleanings and Baker’s Dozen, our roundup of relevant recent media and journal articles.