Room to grow

It's well known here at Casa NativeMom that I can't grow plants. Anything green dies instantly at my fingertips. I'm great at growing kids and dogs, but a fern or ficus, doomed. Which just seems unfair. Why me? Why can I not keep anything plant-like alive? It seems especially unfair that every plant I try to nurture dies, while guys like Orestes Olmo can not only grow plants, he can grow them underground in Florida. 

The Volusia County Sheriff's Office discovered more than $1 million worth of pot growing in caverns dug beneath his backyard in the "most elaborate marijuana growing operation ever seen in Volusia County." 

Last year, when my neighbors tried to put in a swimming pool, they had to pump water for a month. Yet this guy can build tunnels and grow rooms under his backyard shed? Amazing considering that professionals, with degrees and specialized equipment in South Florida struggled for years to build parking garages underground. 

Randy Smith, a spokesman for the South Florida Water Management District, explained that building an underground parking garage in Florida quickly becomes an underwater experience.

"It doesn't have to be very deep, a few feet, and you're going to hit water. It's right under our feet." That kind of construction, he said, requires water pumps, patience and construction workers in scuba gear.

Yet this criminal not only found away around the water table without an engineering degree, he also managed to grow 219 pot plants.

And I can't keep a cactus alive.