{"id":1323,"date":"2024-06-05T06:00:02","date_gmt":"2024-06-05T10:00:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/humorbreak\/?p=1323"},"modified":"2024-06-03T15:57:41","modified_gmt":"2024-06-03T19:57:41","slug":"its-adams-fault-that-i-have-a-black-thumb","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/humorbreak\/2024\/06\/its-adams-fault-that-i-have-a-black-thumb\/","title":{"rendered":"It’s Adam’s Fault That I Have a Black Thumb"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

I Blame My Black Thumb on Adam<\/h2>\n I blame my black thumb on Adam<\/a>. Adam\u2019s sin made God curse the soil, making it impossible for me to grow anything. In Genesis 3:17, God told him, \u201cBecause you listened to your wife and ate fruit from the tree about which I commanded you, \u2018You must not eat from it,\u2019 Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat food from it all the days of your life.\u201d<\/em>\u00a0 \u00a0<\/a>Thank goodness I don\u2019t have to depend on growing my own food for survival; otherwise, I would starve to death. I\u2019ve spent more money trying to grow a few lousy tomatoes than it would have cost me to buy several bushels of tomatoes at the farmer\u2019s market. So, I\u2019ve given up on raising vegetables. But ornamental plants and flowers are another story.<\/p>\n

Despite My Black Thumb, I Still Have the Gardening Bug<\/h2>\n \ Every spring, when pink buds start showing up on my azaleas, and the vines on my fence produce a crop of pretty yellow flowers, I get the gardening bug. I don\u2019t know what the vines are, as I tend to plant things and never remember what kind of foliage I have.\u00a0 That\u2019s because the items I plant are generally not around long enough for me to get attached to them.\u00a0 Put another way, I don\u2019t have a green thumb.\u00a0 What I have is more along the lines of a black thumb.\u00a0 However, that doesn\u2019t stop me from trying.<\/p>\n "Wilted I need plants that thrive on poor soil and neglect\/image courtesy of Pixabay.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n Every year I make my annual pilgrimage to the garden center\u2014usually Lowes<\/a>\u2014where I methodically choose hundreds of dollars\u2019 worth of vegetation to kill.\u00a0 I am somewhat surprised nobody recognizes me as the plant murderess and throws me out.\u00a0 Then again, the more plants I murder, the more money I spend.\u00a0 I go up and down each aisle looking for something that thrives on bad soil and neglect.\u00a0 Sure, I have good intentions when I start out, but somewhere along the line, my plants don\u2019t get fed or watered unless it rains. Add to that the fact I really don\u2019t know what I\u2019m doing, like the time I planted all the beautiful sun-loving plants in the shade.<\/p>\n Are There No Plants That Thrive on Bad Soil and Neglect?<\/h2>\n*** ** ***I look at the plants with the festive blooms.\u00a0 Nope, I planted them a few years ago, and they all died within two weeks.\u00a0 Ooh, that one looks pretty.\u00a0 No, wait, I\u2019ve done that one, too.\u00a0 By now, I can recognize almost everything that did not do well in my hands, leaving me with little to choose from.\u00a0 Impatiens are fairly indestructible except when the dog decides to do her business in the flower bed and has to dig to China first.\u00a0 That doesn\u2019t count as my fault.\u00a0 I even brought in the hanging pot of begonias the first two times the temperature dipped into the thirties this year, and<\/em> I managed to keep the cats from eating them.\u00a0 Unfortunately, on the third cold night I forgot, so there they sit on my porch, their droopy brown bodies a reminder of my failure.\u00a0 My husband says maybe they will resurrect, but I\u2019m not hopeful.<\/p>\n What Do I Have to Do to Get a Beautiful Flower Garden?<\/h2>\n*** ** ***I really should accept my limitations and give up.\u00a0 But all I know is I want a beautiful garden.\u00a0 Hiring an expert to help didn\u2019t do any good.\u00a0 Regardless of explaining (twice) to two different lawn care services that I wanted them to take over and create a colorful masterpiece in my yard, all I got was someone who mowed the thriving weeds twice a month.\u00a0 So, when February turned into March, the sky became robin\u2019s egg blue with wispy white clouds, the temperature hovered at a balmy 72 degrees, and new plant life was everywhere (except my yard); I felt drawn to the garden store like a moth to the flame.\u00a0 I couldn\u2019t fight it.\u00a0 The pull was just too strong\u2014because I just knew<\/em> this time my efforts to plant and maintain a lovely flower garden would succeed.\u00a0 You do know the definition of insanity, right?\u00a0 It\u2019s something about doing the same things over and over and expecting different results.\u00a0 But this time . . .<\/em><\/p>\n Fast forward a couple of months. My petunias are wilted, my coleus droopy, the impatiens are stemmy, and a varmint has gnawed on the hostas. Then I hit upon the perfect solution as God brought this Bible verse to mind: \u201cConsider how the wild flowers grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you, not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these.\u201d<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n Wildflowers thrive on poor soil and neglect! Could someone please tell me where to buy wildflowers?<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I Blame My Black Thumb on Adam I blame my black thumb on Adam. Adam\u2019s sin made God curse the soil, making it impossible for me to grow anything. In Genesis 3:17, God told him, \u201cBecause you listened to your wife and ate fruit from the tree about which I commanded you, \u2018You must not […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5198,"featured_media":1332,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[246,249],"class_list":["post-1323","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-black-thumb","tag-plants-that-thrive-on-bad-soil-and-neglect"],"yoast_head":"\nIt's Adam's Fault That I Have a Black Thumb<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"I Blame My Black Thumb on Adam I blame my black thumb on Adam. Adam's sin made God curse the soil, making it impossible for me to grow anything. 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