I'm Maggie Smith, and this is The Slowdown.

If you've been listening to The Slowdown for a while now, you know I'm not a gardener.

I famously have a brown thumb, as they call it.

But to be honest, I think it's more that I haven't really tried.

For as much as I love trees and appreciate flowers

when I see them, I haven't thought to plant and tend to them myself. For as much as I love

fresh cucumber and zucchini and herbs, I have never planted them.

Lucky me, I live in a friendly neighborhood

on the kind of street where someone sends out a group text saying,

hey, we have organic raspberries.

Who wants some?

A block over is a community herb garden where one of my neighbors has planted basil, lemon balm, parsley, and a host of herbs in the tree lawn, the strip of grass

between the sidewalk and the street, and anyone is free to

harvest from the patch as they walk by. I chose the right neighborhood for a plant-loving brown thumb

to live in. Recently, I visited a close friend of mine in Chicago, and I was marveling at her backyard

garden. My friend says it's satisfying, the feeling of putting seeds or small plants into the

earth, and then watching them grow. I can imagine feeling a sense of accomplishment

from that, especially because I would get to enjoy and share what I grew. All of this got me thinking

about what I don't do, not what I can't do.

The truth is, it's a little silly, and more importantly, inaccurate, to say I can't garden.

I've never tried.

I have definitely killed some houseplants, but I have no idea how a garden of mine might fare.

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