At the mention that I am growing plants, the response will usually be, “Good for you! I don’t have a green thumb.” It’s a cop out! One of these set phrases people use to avoid having to do anything other than stare at their phones, scrolling with their thumbs, which are not green. People aren’t born with an ability to make plants grow, in fact, growing is 100 % up to the plant in the same way the obstetrician only delivers the baby whose cells multiplied, diversified and specialised in an automatic fashion to form baby insides with baby outsides, including a face designed to be cute so we don’t leave them in a dumpster because they cry and shit themselves for three years.
I’m here to facilitate the coming into this world of the plants in my care, as a type of garden obstetrician. And, although experience plays a part in better being able to keep plants alive, it is something anyone can learn – nobody’s thumb is turning green from experience (unless they’ve been tying up tomato plants all week).
Drowning okra plant
Okra leaves eaten by slugs
Lettuce Christmas tree
Beginner’s Mistakes
Overwatering
Hearing that there was an irrigation system the dog chewed up, but that was allowed to run for an hour each day until then, I over-watered the okras. The palms of their leaves had been spread wide until they met me and I made the leaves’ owners breathe wet clay. Soon, they started to pucker and crumple, the older, lower leaves to yellow around the edges and hold themselves down as if feeling rejected. I Googled it…not thinking of the effect this has had on me when trying to self-diagnose something that always ended up being innocuous.
First blossoms
Black-eye peas how’d you get in here?
More bean plant photos (please kill me)
Adolescents
Baby beans
First fruits…vegetables
Baby bean plants
They grow up so fast
Open for business
Be back in the morning
Frog nursery in fold of okra leaf
Sweet basil
Larva stage of ladybird gourmandising aphid
Parrots on the wires
Over Fertilising
I added fertiliser, drawing upon a sense (probably from commercials) that it was only for good, never evil; that it brought plants to life; that it did not burn them up inside or starve them by making other nutrients inaccessible. In spite of what must have seemed to the plants like hatred towards them, they survived…but that’s all they did, clinging on as every insect, whose name is on garden store-bought insecticides, responded to their weakness by covering their out of sight places.
Results:
Different Plants, Different Needs
The beans did a little better in the same soil that was killing the okras. So that’s something else you learn – different plants have different needs.
Watering Schedule
Now, I stick two digits of a finger (that is not my thumb) into the earth to check for moisture, hoping not to ever be stung again by ants. This has led to a watering schedule of every other day for fifteen minutes.
General Things I’ve learnt
Generally, the garden responds to care and attention which requires a lot of Googling, absent gardening mentors (I never made the effort again after NONE OF THE ORGANIC FARMERS RESPONDED TO MY EMAILS). I’ve researched how long to soak seeds (hard beans over night, softer ones a few hours); how deeply to plant corn (1.5 to 3 inches or they may fall over), and that they need to be planted in rows as they wind pollinate (spacey-toothed corn cobs result from lack of pollination); I’ve learned how to propagate basil and sweet marjoram which doesn’t even wilt when branches are cut off and stuck in well-moistened earth; I’ve learned that aphids are repelled by the scent of basil; you should pay attention to spacing for planting different crops; crops respond differently to drip irrigation, perhaps because they have more time to absorb water than with a quick hose-dousing; just because you don’t recognise an insect doesn’t mean it’s an undesirable; although slugs won’t normally eat herbs like thyme, they’ll eat what is available when it’s been dry for as long as it has; just pull up the goddamned plants after their productive cycle is over…although my bitter lettuce is decorative now; start over if the seedlings are scrawny or the yield won’t be good; squash, pumpkin and cucumbers will produce only male flowers in the beginning to attract bees.
Just do it
There is so much to be learnt from just doing it and, eventually, you’re a capsule of knowledge that will make no difference once all the bees are dead from the persistent use of industrial insecticides. But, when you look down, you gasp upon seeing that your thumb has, in fact, turned green (probably due to lack of oxygen as we’ve cut down the last of the trees).
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