MY BROWN THUMB

My father was the greatest gardener ever. After I was an adult, my cousin informed me that my father had actually taken some courses in growning a garden. Does that explain why his vegetables were always so beautiful? Not only could he grow just about anything, they really were beautiful. No blemishes, no weird shapes, no bugs. The size of his perfectly formed berries was enormous. His vegetable garden was huge. I never saw him water it, never saw him purchase bags and bags of compost and manure. I'm sure he weeded it although I never saw him do it. He seemed to have the golden touch. I have considered the possibility that he would wait by the light of the moon for little aliens to come down and sprinkle special alien dust on his garden. This might explain his unreal talent for producing massive quantities of exceptional produce. Did he get his green thumb from a green alien? Hmmm.

Unfortunately, he kept his green thumb to himself. I do not have a green thumb, I appear to have a brown thumb, possibly a black thumb. Black as in the black plague of gardening. You may be expecting me to say that everything just shrivels up and dies, but that would be indicating that things had actually grown. I try, but somehow everything seems to just NOT grow. When I do end up with a vegetable, it is usually tiny and deformed. I don't have a lot of room so when I end up with my tiny and deformed vegetables, there's usually not enough for one meal. I guess I should look on the bright side, no matter how ugly they sometimes look, they taste delicious! Many of the things don't even make it to the table because the kids just love raw vegetables. I guess there's nothing more fun than popping open a pea pod and chowing down right then and there. At least I KNOW that my vegetables don't have any weird, lingering alien dust on them!

I understand that you are probably thinking, wait, didn't she just say that she can't get anything to grow? Well, I will tell you my trick, I go on vacation and my lovely neighbor comes and waters my garden. Voila! Another persons touch is all that is needed to give my plants that boost in order to produce those deformed fruits of my labor. I suppose then, that makes them the fruits of my neighbor's labor, but heck who's keeping track.

So keep an eye on my garden, if you ever notice that its looking unusually lush, you can be sure that my secret is my time spent waiting by the light of the moon!