I Have a Black Thumb of Death

So.
I love to cook.
Mostly, because I love to eat.
I am a vegetarian.
I love fresh vegetables.
I care about the earth and stuff.
I like projects and learning new things and doing things for myself.
Given all these facts, growing my own food seemed like a logical next step in the process of life.
I wanted to be "that girl" that showed up to work on a random Tuesday with a basket full of stuff from my own garden.
I wanted to be able to cook a meal and say, "Oh! I need a tomato! I'll just run outside and pick one off the vine!"
I wanted to have a list of my favorite herbs in constant supply in my backyard.
I wanted to be an eco-conscious, food-conscious, forward-thinking, sustainable-living, 20-something with a grand garden of goodies.

Alas, sometimes the things we want to be are not who we are. This is a hard lesson to learn in life...

Two summers ago, I planted six plants outside. Tomatoes, cucumbers, herbs, peppers and jalapenos. I made the mistake of planting them out of reach of the hose, so water (filling up a water can like...12 times back and forth) was a giant chore. And thus...watering probably did not happen as often as it should. I made the mistake of planting those plants on the sun bleached, Sahara-in-the-summer, side of the garage too. They never had a chance. Sorry dudes. I killed you.

Last summer, I decided to a) plant my plants within reach of the hose and b) Start a little smaller. I was even super fancy and made my own "upside down hanger" for my tomato plant. I thought this garden was destined for greatness. I thought I'd be eating homemade, homegrown Salsa all summer long. What happened to those plants? Oh yeah. They died. Which is a nice way of saying "I killed them."

After the deaths of my plants last summer, I learned that I should never be allowed to farm. Maybe one day, when I'm old and have more time on my hands...I can be a farmer. Maybe farming and growing a garden is something that's meant for a later stage in my life. When me and my chocolate lab named Bear can trapse through our garden and care for plants properly. Maybe Bear with munch tomatoes off the vine when I'm not looking. Maybe I am doomed to have a Black Thumb of Death forver. Who's to really say?

Five months after I buried my dead plants, it was my birthday. My family gave me a Chia pet herb garden as a gift. I think it was probably a desperate attempt to save plants everywhere from my Black Thumb of Death. "Dear God, let's just get her a Chia pet herb garden. Maybe then she won't feel the need to murder any innocent cucumber plants this summer. And I also really don't want a dead, upside down tomato plant in my yard this year. People are going to think Satanists."
So.
I got this herb garden.
As I tend to do, I got a little over excited.
I unwrapped my Chia Pet Herb garden on January First.
And planted them like...a hour later.
Chris was like, "Oh. You're planting them already, huh?"
And I was like, "Heck yes I am!"
I proudly put them on the window sill in the kitchen, where I was sure they would soak up all of that rich, nutritious (read:non existent) January sunlight. I even put ziplock bags over them to a get a Terrarium effect and help the little guys grow considering it was January and I put them on a WINDOWSILL.
By the way...in case you were wondering, I am a genius.

Can you guess what happened?

It's not like they didn't grow. They DID grow. And I DID water them faithfully (it's really easy to remember to water when the plants are staring you in the face everytime you're at the sink).
And for a second I thought to myself, "Maybe I DON'T have a Black Thumb of Death. Maybe one day I'll have a compost pile of my very own. Maybe this year is the year to do it!!! Maybe I SHOULD try again this summer and plant some vegetables!!"

And then...
Well.
And then...they just...stopped growing.
I don't know what happened.
They just, well...they've looked like this since mid-February:


Scraggly. Brown. Going nowhere.
Just like my career as an organic farmer.

Summer Lessons

This summer has been crazy. Absolutely crazy. Personally. Professionally. Everythingally.

I feel like I've been an emotional pinball this summer. Hittin' good spots that light me up with excitment, hittin' spots that should probably be followed by the sound effect, "Wah wah waaaaaaaaaaah".
I've learned a lot about myself these past few months. I'm a pretty proud, stubborn person. And I sorta felt like I failed at everything this summer. It's so hard to not be "THERE" when you want so badly to be "THERE." And because I'm not "THERE", I feel like I'm failing. ("THERE" being a job that I like, that affords me the ability to have a life that allows me to move out and be completely independent and self-sufficient. "THERE" being the ability to make my own life and have some security. "THERE" being the ability to not have to run so hard all the time to make my life work the way I want it to.) When I've been frustrated this summer, or down on myself or my situations my go-to "wish" has been, "God Damn, I wish I could just fast forward a year."
But you can't just fast-forward a year, nor if I was really honest, would I want to.


So, I learned a lot.

But I've learned one thing that's been especially enlightening and important. It may be one of the most revelatory things about myself I've EVER learned, in fact. And that is...

I am a super shitty farmer.

I don't think that plant could be anymore dead. And...I....I don't even know how this happened, really. One day it was fine and the next I looked at it and was like, "Oh, crap."
Well, that's kind of a lie. I guess I sort of know what happened...
It may have something to do with the fact that for those few weeks when it was super hot in Chicago and did not rain for a long time I kept saying to myself as I passed by the hose, "Ehhh....I think it's supposed to rain tonight."

Oops.
As intentional as the murder of my tomato plant sounds, I assure you...it wasn't. I'll grant you that it was maybe "plantslaughter" but most definitely not intentional nor premeditated. It just sort of happened. I kept saying I'd water it "when I got home" or that I'd "go out after dinner" and then...then I forgot or got occupied by something else.

So guys, next year? When I insist on planting plants? Someone please remind me what a shitty farmer I am.

Love Rant: My Veggie "Garden"

I love my veggie garden. I love my veggie garden so much. Even though my veggie "garden" is really just three plants, one in a pot, one in a hanging planter, and one...welll...one in a bucket. I love them. Want to know why I love my poor excuse for a veggie garden so much??

Because I actually think I might get veggies this year!!!! HOORAY!!

Now, if any of you followed my blog last year you may recall the vegetable garden I tried to grow and its miserable failure. "Miserable failure" doesn't even cut it really. It was more like an epic miserable failure.
Last year, I only ended up with a little bit of cilantro and a couple jalapenos out of the six different types of veggies I planted. Yeah. Pretty epically miserable.
I was ashamed.
I was disheartened.
I cursed my garden.
And for a brief moment I thought I'd never make it as an eco-conscious, forward-thinking, grow-you-own-grub type of 21st century human being taking steps to be more responsible about food intake. I'll be honest, before I planted my plants last summer? I had visions of a full out, rowed garden in my backyard. I had visions planting plants in "found" materials like old tires and clementine boxes and milk crates. I had visions of making delicious dinners solely out of what I could pull from the ground in my back yard...
BUT seeing as how I a) live with my dad and he probably wouldn't appreciate me digging up a good portion of his yard and dragging those "found" (read: trash) planters like tires and boxes INTO the yard and b) Every book I read about gardening told me to start small, I decided to start small last year.

...or so I thought.

Turns out, planting six different types of plants in containers along the wall of your garage when you're a busy girl running between three jobs doesn't qualify as "starting small". Two tomato plants. A cuke plant. A jalapeno plant. A pepper plant. And a pot of herbs. 8 weeks into the summer last year it became painfully clear that my initial foray into home-grown sustenance was going nowhere fast.
And in planting those plants in planters along the wall of my garage I realized I had made another critical error...
I planted the plants out of reach of the hose.
Yup.
Super dumb.
Basically, this meant I had the schlep a watering can back and forth from the hose to the garage 6 different times every time I watered.
Basically, this meant that my plants were probably WAY under-watered.
Lessons learned.

Like I said, I was ashamed and disheartened that my first garden was a wreck.
BUT I am also incredibly stubborn. I mean...incredibly perseverant.

But being stubborn doesn't make me a total twit, so THIS year I cut my plant-age in HALF. Three plants to deal with is a whole lot easier than six. You can pay attention to each one, encourage it to grow, and go over to it each day and whisper things like, "I can't wait to eat your ovaries." (No, I don't actually do that because it would be super creepy).

I planted three veggie/fruit plants this year: a tomato plant, a strawberry plant, and a jalapeno plant. I planted them in pots and NEAR the hose. And they're doing pretty well! Nothing has gotten big or developed enough to actually eat yet, but...it's getting there! (I think)

I also made sure not to make the mistake this year of naming my plants. I named my plants last year and that made their failure all the more depressing. Now, my plants are simply known as what they are: Upside-down-tomato-dude, Strawberry-dude, and Jalapenos-in-a-bucket-dude. You might think it cold-hearted, but this way if they fail I won't be depressed.

Check them out....

Strawberry-dude. Oh man. So excited for this dude to start producin' ripe stuff:


I think this little guy will be the first one I can eat. I say this only because, so far, he is the biggest. I am tracking his delicious process daily:

One day, when I'm all grown up and have a home, I picture myself in a cute little cottage-y type place with tons of overgrown berry bushes in the backyard. And all I'll have to do to get breakfast in the morning is walk in the backyard and fill up a dish with good stuff, grab a cup of joe and be made in the shade.


Upside-down-Tomato-dude:

(I didn't want to actually spend money on a planter made for planting tomatoes upside down, so I just bought a regular planter with a coir lining and cut a hole in the bottom. Plus, I'm pretty sure my Dad would have evicted me if I tried to hang up the Topsey-Turvey in his yard.)


Grow little tomatoes GROW! I want to eat you on some bread with some goat cheese.

Jalapenos-in-a-bucket-dude:

This is the one I didn't expect to do all that well because a) I planted him in a bucket and b) I ran out of soil by the time I got to him so he only got like 1/4 of a bucket of soil (I know I KNOW I'm like the worst gardener EVER) but look at those little dudes go! Pretty soon I'm going to have more jalapenos than I can handle.