My thumbs. (by Ben)

I am not a gardener. I have no green thumb. Just regular flesh-colored thumbs. But my life has been checkered with exposure to all manner of gardening experiences. My parents usually had several flower beds and gardens that I helped work. This meant lots of weeding, and watering, and fertilizing. I even remember once, after being told I had to weed the garden before I could go hang out with friends, that I forgot; and found myself outside that evening in the dark, weeding by flashlight, with my friends in the driveway waiting for me to finish. I tended to hate the gardens for the labor they caused me, but like all bad things... the memories have sweetened with age.

That, and the fact that I come from very long lines of ancestor farmers. I'm sure that most people in America, or the world for that matter, are almost direct descendants of farmers; but I have real true farmer blood. I have seen pictures of the land my forbearers worked, and I can trace their single-minded occupation back to landing in America. I now realize that some of their love for the land has trickled down to lay dormant as a seed in me, finally sprouting as a hobby. (Seeing as how I own about 400 square feet of arable land, it couldn't be much more than a hobby if it wanted to.)

My infatuation with farming has reared it's head often in the last decade. I was stunned, living in 'small village Argentina', at the simplicity of farm life. I reveled in the animals you could keep, and the pleasure of growing your own food. I was impressed at all the people that labored an entire season to grow and harvest cotton, to sustain themselves for the rest of the year. I was so impressed, in fact, that I actually grew a tree. I was the only missionary I knew who, on transfer day, when the bus terminals were congested with dozens of missionaries moving from city to city with suitcases in tow, could be seen carrying a 4 foot tall potted tree. I ended up having to leave my tree at the mission home, since I knew that upon return to the US, customs and baggage handlers just wouldn't be sympathetic enough to keep it alive.

Since returning to modern civilization, I've only been able to get that same fix by walking the aisles of the local garden stores. In my mind, you'd have to be a cement-hearted urbanite not to be invigorated by rows and rows of unusually beautiful flats of green. They spark my imagination with visions of bounty, and the prospect of harmony with the land. I've enjoyed reading about self-sustainable living, and the return to the good earth it would cause. I've even tried my hand at growing things. This is where I remind you that I have no green thumb.

I suspect that my failures in gardening result directly from a lack of wholehearted effort, and a healthy lack of training. I had decided to wait to grow anything, until I actually owned some land. So, two years ago when we left apartment life behind, I built a 4-foot-square raised garden bed in the back yard, filled it with good soil, and planted a tomato plant. You see, tomato plants are pretty robust, easy, and I love the fruit. I'd have tried my hand at some other varieties of vegetable... but waiting until July to start a garden is not exactly recommended. In fact, tomatoes were the only 'starter' that the biggest nursery in the city still had left. My tomato plant thrived and yielded about 4 nice tomatoes and was just getting into the swing of things when the first frost hit. I'd started way too late.

The next year, which was last year, I decided to get a jump on things. I planned to start the spring with a more permanent garden bed so that when planting season neared, my beds would be waiting and I could ramp up a healthy garden. But, our back yard at the time resembled a 20 foot by 20 foot representation of Olympic weed growing competitions gone wrong. By the time I had hacked up the offending plants which were about up to Nicki's shoulders, and gathered the materials for my over-ambitiously planned garden, the season was already in full swing. My luxurious garden would never be ready for plants in time, so I meandered back to the nursery, picking up a few herbs, a few tomato plants, and a green pepper plant. They did pretty well for a while, but my sporadic watering, and record high temperatures didn't help much, and the plants were stunted and poor performing. I'd failed again. As I watched my tiny plants ice-over in the late fall and winter, I couldn't tell if the raucous sound I heard was my ancestors crying at my lack of their noble genes, or laughing at my completely hopeless attempts at carrying on the family legacy on about as small a scale as is possible. Again, I'd started later than I should have, and not nurtured the few plants I'd had.

This year was supposed to be different, my dormant and ever-lasting oath to grow a reasonable crop of anything, finally fulfilled. But I had already forgotten to set my internal spring timer and was well on my way to arriving too-late in summer and missing another good start to the growing season. Then it happened. I had just finished a work meeting a little faster than expected, and had about 25 minutes to kill until my next meeting, which was just a quarter-mile away. I drove to the next appointment and found, to my delight, that their parking lot bordered on a small nursery. I skipped out of my car, delighted at my fortune.

I walked rows of green, green, and nothing but green. I was overwhelmed by all the different shapes of potential. I didn't have much time to spare, so I walked up to the lady at the counter, taking full advantage of my obvious out-of-place-ness (I was wearing a suit in a garden store), and asked if it was too late to start growing a garden. Instead of laughing, or guffawing, or asking me what I was selling; I was taught. She showed me the calendar and when we expected the last frost in our area. She told me the ideal dates for planting from starts, and the right dates for planting from seed. And, wouldn't you know it, the right day to start planting from seed was this week. That's one week for germination, and 6 weeks for a nice small plant to grow, and then BAM! 7 weeks from now when the last frost has passed and the weather is just right, I'll have a nice flat of healthy young plants to stick in whatever garden I have at that point. The stars had aligned, and I was going to take full advantage.

I thought about which plants I actually wanted to grow. First and foremost was the tomato. I wanted a rematch and needed to prove that I could grow the least fickle garden plant successfully. I wanted pumpkins too, because some friends of ours planted some last year and it was neat that they had their own pumpkins growing in the fall, and didn't have to drive across the county and buy them for Halloween. Maybe some onions, jalapeno and cilantro so I can make fresh salsa. Mmm. yep. That ought to do it for the first year. But looking over the rows and rows of packets of seeds, I was startled to see about 15 different tomato varieties! It took all the time I had to pick which ones I thought would be best, and buy my seeds and planting containers. (I chose seeds for 8 different kinds of tomato)

Pleased with my impulsive purchase, I went about the rest of my day. But as I reflected on what I'd have to do to grow these tiny seedlings; it occurred to me that I'd have to start them indoors. And this posed a problem. Our garage is far too cold right now, and there isn't really any place in the house that I could put a flat of un-grown plants and not have our rambunctious kids view it as an opportunity for mayhem. Not to mention the fact that Nicki keeps our house flawlessly organized, and a messy dirt filled container wouldn't exactly fit the ambiance and neatness. Some minor searching brought a pair of revelations. The first from the blogging world: One of the best places in your whole house to start a bed of seedlings is... (drum roll)... on top of your refrigerator!? The warm temperatures are ideal for nice warm soil so the seeds can flourish. I figured they'd be out of Nicki's sight and the kids couldn't reach them. But, once the seeds sprout, they need lots of light. There isn't a single windowsill in our house where we could put plants and not have them destroyed by children by the end of the day. I figured I could work up a wire cage around one of the windows to keep the kids out; or maybe rig a set of growing lights up on top of the fridge. Ideally, I'd build a greenhouse outside. It'd keep the plants warmer than our still cool 50 degree days with nice big panes of glass, and maybe even be portable enough to shift during the day to keep the light at perfect angles. Hmm. A big, portable, mostly-glass-walled structure, away from curious kids and the neat tidy wife. I already had one sitting in my driveway! My car has a long curved back hatch with a giant pane of glass. I've always cursed it in the summers for letting in so much sun, but realized that even on cool winter days it can stay quite warm. I had my mobile greenhouse.

I planted my seeds 6 days ago, and today they are all healthy and reaching for light. I haven't killed them yet, and I'm hoping that just maybe, if I get my hands dirty enough, I just might end up with a green thumb after all.