Catching the Gardening Bug Plant Addiction, Collection Can Grow Before Your Eyes

Summary

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My friend Ted is the kind of gardener that won't take no for an answer. Where others shy away from the prospect of growing anything on a 5-by-20-foot lawn directly adjacent to a busy road, Ted finds the idea enticing. His small but tasty crop of beans, peas, cucumbers, lettuce, spinach, beets, onions, tomatoes, carrots, zucchini and herbs, in addition to the more than 20 varieties of flowers he cares for, prove his enthusiasm is well-founded. Which is why I blame Ted, in part, for my recent descent into what may be the most addictive of all hobbies: gardening.

Ted studied botany at the University of Maine where we met nearly 10 years ago. Though he doesn't work in the field, he does maintain a lifelong passion for growing things. When he lived in rural Dixmont, he grew flowers and vegetables; now that he lives in urban Bangor, like me, he makes do with the land he has and grows on his front lawn, in beds and boxes around the house, and in containers. I always was secretly jealous of his green thumb.

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Extract

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Catching the Gardening Bug Plant Addiction, Collection Can Grow Before Your Eyes

My move to the green side started last March. In a fit of spring cleaning, Ted bequeathed me an aloe plant, an apple-scented geranium, and a sad-looking potato plant in a huge ceramic pot, telling me he needed to get rid of some plants or else he feared he would become one of them.

I brought them home, treating them like abandoned kittens. I watered them, tossed in some plant food, and set them in the large picture wi...

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