She grew up with plants and flowers and seasons full of fresh fruits and vegetables.
She loved the gardens and working in the dirt amongst the plants.
As she grew older she planned gardens of her own.
She was soon heartbroken to discover that she was not like the rest of her family.
No, she had been struck by the worst of curses - A Black Thumb!
Oh the frustration and devastation she endured!
Over and over she suffered the demise of the plants she tended so carefully.
Dejected by her constant failures, she gave up trying.
But she was sad.
She looked longingly at the gardens of others and sighed,
Resigning herself to a life of crab grass and weeds and the occasional nameless bush planted by others.
She read gardening books, articles, magazines and blogs - she made lists of plants
and plans for gardens that would never come to be
The Curse of the Black Thumb kept her from her green dreams.
One day Black Thumb, now a wife and mother herself, moved with her family to a house in the city.
The house came with a small, terribly dilapidated and neglected, urban backyard.
"Perhaps I could pave it with bricks in a pretty pattern and create a terrace." She thought when considering the possibilities in her small space, "That would look nice."
(And with few if any plants, her curse would remain hidden.)
But she was busy and the terrace idea was shelved until at least the next spring.
There were more than enough other projects to keep her busy on the house.
One day as she lingered outside the front of her house, she was approached by an elderly neighbor.
He told her wonderful stories of the amazing garden her yard once harbored. A garden that produced the most wonderful and bountiful tomatoes around. (The ultimate achievement of any St. Louis gardener)
He asked if the rhubarb still grew along the fence and told her that she needed to net the grape vines early if she didn't want the birds to get them all.
On and on he went, and she listened.
As she listened to the old man's descriptions of the gardens that once graced her now barely used and sorely neglected yard, she felt it happening -
The Green Dreams returned.
This time she could not push them away.
She didn't give in right away.
She had been sorely burned by giving in to those Green Dreams before.
But this time the Dreams pushed at her stronger than ever before.
She caught herself looking out the window next to the sink as she did dishes, planning a bed of flowers and edibles running alongside the old concrete walkway.
As she cooked dinner she would think of the herbs she could grow just off the small back porch.
As she watched her children playing, she imagined them outside in the summer under the shade of a pole bean tee-pee nibbling just-plucked sugar snap peas.
No, this time the Green Dreams just would not leave her alone.
It was as if the ghosts of those long-ago gardens were summoning her to awaken them.
"Perhaps," She thought tentatively "just perhaps, things will be different this time."
So, in the midst of winter she began planning.
Not for the brick terrace,
But for a bountiful garden.
A garden that would break the curse of her Black Thumb.
This is where she has chosen to document her quest,
The story of the Green Dreams of a Black Thumb -
And (hopefully) how they became real.
