Confessions of a former botanophobe

Growing up, there were always plants in the house. Hostas, ficus, Norfolk Island pine, aloe vera, maybe some herbs on the kitchen window sill. Green things, rather than flowers or fruits or vegetables. That seemed to be common among the houses I visited as well. Maybe it’s a Texas thing. It’s certainly too hot to tend an outdoor garden for half the year.

I was never involved in the care of those plants. As a kid—teenager—I wasn’t really interested in taking care of plants. It’s never been a bug for me, and after moving out, I learned that I have a brown thumb. I’ve killed cacti. I’ve killed plants that are notoriously hard to kill.

Granted, a large reason I’ve done poorly with plants is neglect. I forget, or rather decline, to water plants and then throw them out when they’re nothing but dried husks. But I tried, I really tried, to properly care for a seedling my daughter brought home from school, which was supposed to be a very easy to care for plant, and I still killed it.

So a year or two (three?) ago, I officially gave up on trying to grow anything. I’ve never really missed having plants around anyway. [image error]When my daughter later brought home a gladiolus bulb, I told her it was her job to care for it. I bought a spade for her to plant it in the back yard and took pictures of her doing it. That was about the extent of my involvement.

Truth be told, I don’t think it received much in the way of care from my daughter either after that point, but it bloomed beautiful red flowers in summer and grew taller than her, before a squirrel stole the bulb in the fall and it subsequently never came back. But it grew. A plant, within the borders of my home, did exactly what it was supposed to do and thrived.[image error]

I always love seeing flowers in the spring. The warmer air and sight of green things and beautiful colours never fails to cheer me. Many years, I walk around the neighbourhood and think about beautifying my own home. Add some colour, maybe a hanging plant or two. But, I’m still just not interested in gardening. Certainly not enough to be worth the fight to keep the cats from getting to it.

For some reason, however, a few months ago as lockdown began to stretch on, the thought of growing vegetables stuck in my head. I still don’t know why. But I figured that lots of people grow gardens successfully, it can’t really be that hard.

I started small. I knew my own history with plants, and my historical lack of interest in caring for them. So at first, after looking up regrowing vegetables from scraps, I decided to try regrowing an onion. And what do you know, it did. I don’t have a whole onion yet, but it’s regrown quite a bit of greens and a little bit of the vegetable itself. Same with celery and lettuce (I later killed the lettuce, but mainly allowed that because I got better stock).

So, continuing the trend of minimum investment, I collected seeds from a bell pepper and from a tomato and, after buying some soil and peat pots, planted those. Lo and behold, they sprouted as well! In fact, these ones ended up sprouting too well and became bushes. After buying some larger pots, I replanted a number of them and, despite being dug up by squirrels a couple of times, they’re growing quite well now.

I ended up buying some seeds in addition to those I collected. I chose a poor location to browse for seeds, as there was very little selection left. At the same time, I didn’t have any idea what I was actually looking for, so I suppose it’s just as well I was only given a few choices. I ended up buying lettuce, oregano, and pie pumpkin seeds, as well as a couple flowers I’m less invested in.

[image error]

I am the pumpkin queen.

The pumpkins amazed me. I started the seeds in peat pellets and they literally sprouted overnight. After replanting them in their final home, they were growing at least half an inch per day (until being dug up by squirrels… an ongoing problem). I’ve even had the second seeds from each pellet sprout, weeks after one had already dominated its pellet. They’re growing far better than I would have expected, and far quicker than anything else.

Everything’s in pots, and I’d been bringing them inside at night to keep them safe, though they’ve remained outdoors over the past week. I was concerned for them when we got heavy rain this week, yet all of the plants (aside from the flowers, which I planted in an old salad tub but forgot to add drainage) seemed to love the extra water, so I’m watering them a bit more each day now.

All told, everything’s looking really good so far. I cooked off my first oregano seeds and didn’t harden off the lettuce properly, so I’ve started new seeds for both of those, which are going to stay in their greenhouse a little longer. (Since the pumpkins sprouted so fast, the lettuce and oregano got replanted too early.) I’ve done a lot of reading about how to care for these plants and I’m enjoying watching them grow, and taking care of them this time.

As I tend to do with new projects, I had ambitious thoughts of a complete garden rushing through my head with these successes, but fortunately, I managed to keep my impulses in check. If I succeed and enjoy growing these plants this year, then maybe we will set up a proper garden in the back yard next year. I’ve never had the opportunity to step out my back door and pick food for the dinner table, so I’m excited about the prospect of getting some vegetables out of this.