The Story of the Not-so-Green Thumb

Once upon a time there was a girl who planted things in garden boxes on her balcony. This year, the girl was growing lettuce, and for the first time, attempting herbs: dill and oregano. Vigilantly, she nurtured the seeds she planted, but while the dill started shooting up fairly quickly, the oregano remained hidden under the soil.

Eventually, a plant appeared in the empty garden box! This plant was also sprouting up amongst the dill and in the lettuce. Presuming the wind had blown the seeds around early on, the girl sighed in relief that her oregano had at least started growing, and kept tending to her little garden.

One day, the girl was at a friend's house. Her friend was making vegetable dip, and as she moved around the kitchen, commented, "...needs some oregano." The girl watched in confusion as her friend snatched some leaves from a plant in the kitchen that looked nothing like her own oregano plant. Knowing that her friend was much wiser about food plants than she, the girl decided to deal with the foreign garden plant once she got home.

Upon closer inspection, she realized that not only did this plant not look like oregano, it didn't even smell like oregano. It kinda stunk, actually. And the rate at which the plant was growing was exceeding the dill and the lettuce. One of the stalks even had a little yellow flower forming on it. Hmm, the girl thought, a fast growing plant growing in all my garden boxes... Weeds! The thought that weeds had been growing so freely in her garden boxes annoyed her greatly. They could have hampered the growth of the other plants! She diligently yanked all the stalks out of the boxes and tossed them in the garbage. That felt better. It certainly looked better.

Two weeks passed and the girl thought nothing of her garden box misadventure. Then one day, the girl was playing with her niece in the family's back yard. Her family that lived there had a beautifully landscaped back yard, so the girl thought it odd when she sat down next to a large, gangly-looking plant near the patio--a giant version of the plant she'd had in her own garden boxes. I know my family's been busy, the girl thought, but they wouldn't let a weed get this bad... would they? The smallest seed of doubt started to fill the girl's mind. She moved the stalks around a bit to inspect the massive plant more closely. She gasped.

TOMATO!

Sure enough, small green tomatoes were sprouting all over the plant. The girl's heart sank as she realized what she'd done in her own garden. She'd had at least half a dozen tomato plants growing, and she'd yanked them all. No, she hadn't researched the foreign plant online. No, she hadn't asked anyone about it possibly not being a weed. Where would tomato seeds have come from?!--No one else's balcony had tomatoes. And why would something so yummy come from a plant that smells so awful?! ...There had been no reason to make the link from "not oregano" to "tomato". As a result, she'd lost the potential for one of her favourite garden foods.

...And she still had no oregano.