The first grow felt like an accident. The third like something I'd actually learned. I'm still surprised by that.

I want to be upfront about something: I have killed a lot of plants. Succulents, which people insist are impossible to kill. A pothos, which is basically a houseplant for people who claim they have no green thumb — I still don't know how I managed that one. I'd stopped buying plants for a while because I was tired of watching things die on my watch and feeling like it meant something about me.

So the first harvest from my em-Li didn't feel like a skill. It felt like luck. I snipped what had grown, used it in something I cooked that night, and quietly assumed I'd gotten away with something — that the growing had happened despite me, not because of anything I'd done.

The second round, I paid a little more attention. Not much. I noticed what the earlier cycle had looked like at this stage, compared it, adjusted what I was expecting. Still felt tentative. Still felt like I was borrowing someone else's competence.

It was the third grow where something changed. I looked at the leaves one morning and just knew they were ready — not because a screen told me, but because I recognised the look of it now. I knew what "a few more days" looked like versus "today." That recognition wasn't luck. It was something I'd actually picked up, without meaning to, just from paying attention three times over.

I'm still a little surprised by that. Somewhere between the accident and the pattern, I'd become someone who could keep something alive — not through effort or discipline, but just by being around it enough times to start understanding it. I don't know if I'd call myself a "plant person" yet. But I've stopped assuming I'll kill the next one. That's new. That's mine.

- Ratna, a home maker