Exploring my Green Thumb

I have set myself a challenge for 2015. One of many. But this one is special because.......I am a notorious plant killer. I simply do not have a green thumb. I have tried to grow pretty flowers and they all died. I tried to grow cactus plants and bamboo things - which are supposed to be únkillable'. Well not in my case. They turned brown and turned moldy. I have tried culinary herbs - with limited success but nothing like the flourishing pictures online.

So I just gave up. However, a few months ago, I decided to revisit this matter. In my mind's eye, I see myself growing all sorts of fruits and vegetables. And herbs and flowers. And going from my garden to my food lab or into a pretty vase in the house. As a former management consultant and strategist, I decided to be methodical about this. I wrote out all the terrible things that happened to the plants and what I did to contribute or not contribute to their demise. And I saw some learning points. I went online and have subscribed to YouTube channels, bookmarked home gardening websites and I am ready.

Come January, I will be starting a greenhouse that I plan to grow culinary herbs, flowers, fruits and vegetables. My challenge is to try to grow as many things as possible including things that people have sworn will not thrive in Nigeria. I also hope to have good enough harvests - even if its 2 purple carrots at a time that I can challenge myself to use in my food lab. I will document this (mis)adventure on the blog and I honestly cannot wait.

In the interim, I decided to plant scent leaf/efinrin/nchawun/African basil as a test case. I use this herb a lot - in peppersoup, egusi soup, I add to yam porridge, white rice, fried stew and even to lemonade so it made sense to start with this.

Look at it!!!! I am so excited. There is hope for me afterall. Its doing so very well and I think this bodes well for my greenhouse project....

Enjoy!!!!