Green Thumb

Mike had a green thumb these last few years. He grew plants and flowers but very little vegetables - too many squirrels would eat any veggies. But, he didn't always have a green thumb. Mike grew up in the San Francisco area, but spent most of his adulthood in the south. We lived in Mansfield during the 80's and all the men had big gardens. Mike wanted to experienced this so he had someone come and break up a large portion of our side yard. He then planted corn, tomatoes, squash, melons, peppers. He was really proud of the corn and when some friends told him that he needed to fertilize the corn, he went down to the feed store and bought a large bag. I noticed that the corn was dying
and went to investigate. Each corn stalk had a brown ring molded around the base of it.

I asked Mike to show me how he fertilized the corn. He got a handful of fertilizer and backed it around the base of each stalk. I explained that he had to put it in the dirt around and not actually on the stalk. We lost all the corn and then the tomatoes started dying. I asked how this was fertilized. He had dug a trench around each plant and put two handfuls of fertilizer in it. We had lots of squash and okra and other veggies - but no corn or tomatoes. I thought this was the funniest thing he had ever done but then I had grown up around gardens.

Mike loved working in his gardens during the following years but he
never again killed tomatoes and corn in this manner.