Read and Thrive

Top picks for green thumbs

It started with Barbara Kingsolver. Years before reading Animal, Vegetable, Miracle I was reading Bean Trees, Animal Dreams, and Prodigal Summer. All of them have some connection to harvest or growing your own food. Although I don’t normally reach for non-fiction, her book about the experience of growing everything for a year on their Appalachia family farm was close enough to fiction for me to stray. I wasn’t inspired to start a vegetable garden then, although I did attempt making my own cheese very unsuccessfully. 

Fast forward a dozen years. I am now married with three kids, ages 4, 8 and 11 years old. Watching TikTok’s garden harvests has become a nice way to decompress. I envision my 4-year-old daughter skipping out to the garden, small basket in hand, to find dinner. My older boys would suddenly love all vegetables. We’d have a bounty of tomatoes, lettuce, lush herbs, and tall bean vines. It would be so cost effective and fun for all.  

 “Yes!” I thought. So, I went all in.  

I planted seeds for every vegetable I’d heard of and some I hadn’t, like Mexican sour gherkins. I painstakingly dropped miniscule seeds into seedling containers with tweezers, surrounded by boxes, two days before moving. This made zero sense. But I was determined not to lose a single second of growing time. I borrowed heating pads and lights. I researched companion planting; I watched more TikTok videos. I learned about damping off. (RIP first set of seedlings.) I learned about fans and watering techniques. I have five (five!) kinds of fertilizer. My dining room played nusery to dozens of Red Solo cups for half-grown seedlings. Along the way, I found books that helped me figure some of this out. Like Edward C. Smith, who warned me, “Eggplant is fussy, fussy plant. We like it once it’s on the dinner plate but in the garden, it can drive you batty” I ignored this advice and planted two kinds of eggplant, despite no one in our household liking it. 

 All New Square Foot Gardening gave me an appetite for making Mel’s Mix next year, author Mel Bartholomew’s own recipe for raised bed soil, as well as some tips on planning and organizing layout. He also gets into making compost, which felt intimidating. Turns out only 10% of gardeners compost, so I’m not alone. More on that in a bit. 

The joy of harvesting my first radish was real. Lettuce started to appear, and I even managed some large broccoli leaves. I would wander around in my bathrobe in the early hours, coffee cup in hand, inspecting my rows with pride. I saw firsthand how pest deterrents like marigolds and basil work, and pollinators like sunflowers and borage bring in butterflies and bees.  

But like many new gardeners, this summer vision of mine did not measure up to reality. It’s mid-August and I’ve harvested two tomatoes. The rest are still green. My eggplant is covered with lovely purple flowers, but it is unclear if any vegetables will appear. I’ve gotten a fair amount of lettuce; a handful of cucumbers and peppers and a struggling cilantro and dill plant. Those Mexican sour gherkins? No gherkins in sight. I had high hopes for my purple potato crop. I managed eleven, most of them smaller than a golf ball. Much of my basil has bolted, as we don’t make pesto fast enough. I have a prolific number of ground cherries, which only one person in our household will eat. My broccoli never actually formed broccoli crowns and was destroyed by pests. I never got a drip system in place, so I spent hours hand-watering. But despite all of this, I am hooked. There is something that feeds my soul in getting out and trying to make something grow, even if it is small or struggling or doesn’t end up making it. The small wins keep me fascinated. I just ordered, “Let it Rot” to see if I’m ready to take on the art of composting. My fall seeds are ready to direct sow. Wish me luck and please share your stories of green thumb adventures as they come! 

Read more by Leslie LaRue