Green Thumbs Are Not Inherited

Green thumbs are not inherited. I know this b/c my mom has a 25 x 20 foot garden bursting with all sorts of hearty, healthy, bountiful goodness. She can grow pretty much anything, anywhere. It was sort of a problem as a kid b/c we always had pounds of zucchini and squash around (yeah Anna, I know, this would be your dream childhood). But we also always had 9 zillion cherry tomatoes at any one moment and those were like little bits of joy. So, it worked out ok.

Anyway the point is, my mom is a tremendously talented gardener. I have inherited a lot of things from my mom (timothy, no comments) but her green thumb is not one of them. I think its sort of a self fulfilling prophesy - like math - I'm not all that good at it so I tend to let others do it for me (now that I am out of grade school that is not considered cheating) so I never get any better and so on. Ergo, I usually leave the gardening to others (see previous post on joining a CSA).

But the other day I went to the store to buy basil for like the 53rd time in 2 weeks. And next to the packaged basil were actual basil plants. And I thought, how hard can it be to grow basil? And then I can stop paying Harris Teeter to be my gardener.

Well, from what I understand, it isn't that hard to grow basil but I still can't seem to do it. I took my little basil plants out of their plastic wrap, potted them in nice little ceramic pots (1/2 potting soil and 1/2 dirt - tip from Kelly), watered them, and went to bed.

I came home the next day (totally forgot to check on them in the morning) and they were mostly a dessicated pile of withered leaves. Only mostly b/c Kelly didn't forget to check on them and gave them more water. Apparently when you pot a new plant you pretty much have to drown it. I didn't do that. I gave each plant about 2 tblsps of water, a woefully inadequate amount, and as a result may have murdered my very first basil plants. Which is apparently really hard to do b/c basil is like a weed, it grows anywhere and a lot.

Not only have my basil plants lost total faith in me, so has Kelly. Yesterday when I got home I went right over to my little basil plants for some water and TLC. . . and their soil was totally soaked. Kelly has taken to watering them for fear that they will never recover under my neglectful watch.

In case you were wondering, they're doing ok as of this morning (day 3). Some of the leaves look well hydrated and healthy. There just might be a home grown pesto in my future after all.