Greening a Thumb

PEOPLE WHO KNOW ME often say that I was born with the proverbial green thumb, but I wasn’t. Nobody is born with an innate ability to make things grow. It is possible for one to learn enough about plants over the course of a lifetime so that it may seem that a green-thumbed human variant exists. That said, I do believe that some are more receptive to learning about plants than others.

I got started in gardening early, nurtured by two grandfathers who really knew how to grow things. I heard it said that during the Depression all the vegetable and fruit needs of my Grandfather Coppa’s very large, Italian-American extended family were met from a meticulously kept garden plot maybe 60 by 60 feet. This even had neat, narrow, poured-concrete pathways so my grandmother wouldn’t get too dirty collecting the daily harvest. Suffi ce it to say that if a vegetable could be grown in Rhode Island, it was grown there in Frank Coppa’s garden, including things I’ve never had great success with, like watermelons and cantaloupes. The produce