Features

A Black Thumb

Posted on: April 12, 2007

By Kim Ward

Everyone needs a hobby. It is a great way to decompress and get away from the daily stresses that assault us all. Then there are those hobbies which may lead to our eventual demise. Treacherous thoughts have begun to filter through my thick skull on my choice of hobbies. Gardening is not for the weak of heart.

Last year, I was able to participate in a local farmers market. Carving sayings or pictures into stone was hard work and extremely therapeutic. It was well received by parishioners of the market, those seeking some locally grown fruits and veggies to enjoy while fighting global warming and aging at the same time. As an endless parade of people came for the good eats at the booths of my fellow marketers a notion began to tickle my consciousness…maybe I should grow a garden and sell the fruits and vegetables of my labor along with carved stone. VOILA, a simple idea seemed to be a stroke of genius but may be in fact the dumbest thing I have ever done. Being the dumbest thing in my life is hard to achieve when competing against a lifetime of self sabotage, self degradation and thinking with the wrong part of my body.

In the dead of winter, I began to scheme exactly what I would grow and how I would do it. There are nine people living at my house and the idea of putting them all to work thrilled me. With motivated determination I constantly checked the gardening sections of every store I visited. I compared the prices for seeds and gardening supplies and purchased what I deemed worthy. My back entry became a small nursery for plants. Eventually I bought a small greenhouse and set it up. As time went on everything appeared to be going well…how naïve I was.

My first mistake was forgetting where I live. Idaho, which could have the motto “the garden killing state”, does not have weather conducive to gardening. The mixture of death causing cold and stroke causing heat requires special consideration for those who choose to raise a garden. When I purchased my small greenhouse, I foolishly thought I had compensated for the cold. I placed my baby plants in the green house. The temperature inside was well above comfortable. I checked the plants twice that day before going to bed, they seemed happy. I had gotten to know each of my little seedlings and often found myself talking to them as I fed and watered them.

The next morning, all my plants were dead. The frost was not stayed by the thin plastic lining. The view of death and destruction at the door of my betraying greenhouse made me feel like burning the thing down. However a few plants had survived. I promptly bought a heater and things began to improve. I re-seeded and things took off. My new batch of baby plants soon erased the terrible memory of the dead. I was happy and my plants seemed happy. Once again I found myself talking to them and checking on them first thing in the morning and last thing at night. All seemed right in the world, once again I was lulled into a mirage of security.
Wind advisories are as common as potatoes here in Idaho. When I heard of the advisory I didn’t give it a second thought. My small greenhouse had stood up to some very tough gusts of wind. As I drove home on Tuesday night, there was something missing from the landscape of my yard. The greenhouse was gone; all that was left to prove it even existed was some torn up plastic, hundreds of dead plants and a malfunctioning heater. I threw up.

It seems the cold hearted b@#ch, Mother Nature, does not want me to grow a garden. Forgive my poor use of language. It is the only way I can describe how I feel about what Mom Nature has done to my little green friends. As the owner of a commercial greenhouse told me, “To be a good gardener, you will kill more plants than you will ever raise.” I hope that is true.

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