Brown Thumb

It's official. Plants hate me. If my camera/ computer connection was working I would photograph the pots we planted a few weeks back and show you our progress as of today. But I don't even think we need the visual. I can sum it up in one word. DIRT. I have several little pots and buckets on the dock and in the cockpit of barren dirt.

*sigh*

Ok. So I'm not a gardener (ironic since my dad is practically self sufficient on his farm). But I can scavenge with the best of them. We now have a secret place in our local park where we hunt for morels. And after signing up for this way cool monthly booklet from Herbal Roots, we're learning how to identify and, better yet, put to use the plants growing all around us!

May was dandelions, and Zach has turned the hunt for these little weeds into a zealous passion, yelling from his car seat as we whip by dandelion covered median strips on the highway for me to pull over and let him pick some.

I am loving how he now appreciates this underdog of the plant world, and goes around boasting that they're his new favorite "grow food".

We got a few stares as we spent the afternoon sitting on the dock with a bucket and the hose rinsing (and rinsing and rinsing -- oh how the boy loves that hose) loads of dandelions while reading the fun stories from Herbal Roots.

And voila -- our harvest! A fresh crop of healthy, happy, wild and free dandelion greens. When we saw some for sale later that week at Whole Foods, Z said, "Why would people buy those here when they are growing everywhere? And they taste better when you get them yourself mama."


As for those pots of dirt, I think I'll just pull the worms out of them and stick to fishing from the aft deck.