As a child, I spent endless hours weeding and picking in my family’s flower beds and vegetable gardens. Or maybe it felt like hours. Maybe I played with my Barbies more than weeding. Anyways, I thought gardening was stupid. Even after being gifted my very own child-sized watering can, I would loudly complain to my mother “why are you spending soooo much time out here when it’s just going to die anyways?” Weeds were stupid, watering was stupid and picking green beans in the hot hot sun was really stupid. The concept of buying a plant, making it grow and then just enjoying it’s beauty was lost on me. There were Barbies to play with.

My mother can now, once again, smugly say “I told you so.” I have planted a garden. Well, it’s plants in some pots on my porch but it’s still a garden! I have a tomato plant, cilantro, some herbs that are doing nothing and a hanging basket. And I love them all.

I come home from work and dote on my plants. I pick off the leaves, check out the soil, stake my tomatoes and bring them inside if it’s windy. The plants probably won’t survive, because I have no idea what I’m doing, and in that case I would be devastated. I care an obscene amount about my little garden and I’m pretty proud of it too. I find myself putting my homegrown cilantro on everything from turkey sandwiches to pizza just so I can take a bite and say “mmm fresh cilantro.”

Catching the green thumb bug wasn’t something I intended on doing, but I’m pretty sure my mom had this planned out from the very first tiny watering can.

Look at my babies! Go grown-up

UPDATE: As predicted, my garden was a loss. My tomato plant didn’t get enough sun and it didn’t have enough room in it’s tiny plant. It did bore me a single beautiful tomato that I cut into tiny pieces and enjoyed bite by bite. Thanks for the learning experience, guinea pig tomato plant. I’ll be back for more.

Sad, lonely tomato