What color is your thumb?

Mine, unfortunately is a rather pale shade that is just a bit further from green than most people. 

Every since I was little, I wanted to be a farmer.  I wanted to bring armloads of fresh veggies to my table and listen to the oohs and aahs of my family.  I wanted to cut fresh flowers and fill vases up in every room, the scent of fragrant blossoms wafting through my home. 

Too bad the armloads were really handfuls and the blossoms were a few scraggly buds.

My first experience with gardening came when I was eleven.  During a particularly long summer, my mother gave me a few packets of seeds and told me to go outside and amuse myself.  Amuse I did and I raked and hoed and planted those seeds as delicately as I could.  A few weeks later I was able to harvest my bounty.  My beefsteak tomatoes turned out to be the size of peas, my cantaloupes, while ripe were the perfect size for my Barbie’s.  My veggies were cute, yes, but not really a bountiful harvest.

I was never a quitter and subsequent summers brought me more gardening experiences.  Let me be perfectly clear here.  I come from a long line of gardening geniuses.  My grandfather, a garden guru, would sell his rare created seeds. His garden was a showplace.  Somehow I felt as if I was a bit of a failure.

And then I discovered zucchinis.  Zucchinis are the vegetable version of snake plants.  You just plant them and they will do their stuff with very little help from anyone.  That summer I picked zucchinis the size of baseball bats.  I gave them away to everyone with unabashed pride.  My family was sick to death of zucchini fried, baked, boiled and sautéed.  They ate it baked in bread, and as a meat substitute.

“What’s for dinner?”

“Zucchini.”

In addition, something else strange had happened. All of a sudden my flowerbeds took off too.  The blooms were abundant!!

That summer ended and this year I aimed to repeat my performance.  The hottest and driest summer on record put an end to my success. 

I have gone, as they say, back to the drawing board.  This summer may not have facilitated the great zucchini explosion, but there is always next year.  I think I’ll go outside and pick some snapdragons; they will look terrific in that new bud vase.

Pastel Dogwood ACEO

Acrylic Iris ACEO