What's the Opposite of a Green Thumb?

Answer: Jess's thumb.

My track record for gardening is rather grim: I kill pretty much every plant that I attempt to grow. Sometimes I forget to water them for days at a time, but usually what happens is I water them too much, worried that I forgot to water them the day before.

Cause of death: an excess of love.

Because you always want what you can't have, I want SO badly to be a successful gardener. I have this mental image of myself wearing a floppy straw hat and overalls, carrying baskets laden with homegrown fruits, veggies, and flowers as I walk barefoot through neat rows of flourishing plants.

I know. I'm ridiculous.

I think part of it is that I love productive hobbies. I took up knitting while I was traveling partially because it was something to do on all of the trains, buses, and planes I spent hours on, but also because I had something to show for it around Christmas time.

See the scarf my aunt is wearing? Yeah, I made that. (No big deal.)

Gardening is another one of those productive hobbies: you put in the work, you get yummy food and pretty flowers. Bam.

My great-grandfather had a substantial garden, which my grandparents and great-uncle still maintain. When I was younger, we would spend a few days there every summer, and we would be put to work, pulling weeds, watering, and harvesting the produce. Each night, we would eat the fruits (and vegetables) of our labors.

My family has a decent-sized backyard garden these days. More often than not, it's been kind of an overgrown mishmash of squash, bean, and tomato plants, all of which produce far more than we could ever eat by ourselves. We've also had a few incidents of accidental gardening: the seeds from something in the compost heap sprout in the garden, and the mystery plant thrives amidst all of the intentionally-cultivated plants.

To me, there's just something so appealing about growing your own food. You're so connected to the process: you know exactly what went into the food that you're eating. Fruits and vegetables from the grocery store are always a bit of a question mark in that respect.

Homegrown foods also just taste so much better than mass-produced, sat-on-a-truck-for-500-plus-miles, grocery-store produce. (Saving money is just an added bonus.)

So I'm giving this gardening thing another shot. I'm currently attempting to grow carrots, sunflowers, peppermint, spearmint, and wildflowers in my family's garden. The sunflowers are doing the best so far (they're fairly hardy plants, thank goodness), but the mint isn't doing too bad, either. The carrots, well...too soon to say.

Stay tuned to find out whether I can break the curse of the non-green-thumb! Feel free to share any gardening tips or stories that you have. ☺