Really, at the root of it all was a lack of patience. She extracted herself from the wreckage of her garden and marched back towards the house to rinse off her muddy boots, taking her regrets with her. The tomato plants had failed to bear fruit once again, the squash was anemic, the loan surviving pepper plant could have been mistaken for a weed. Too easy to blame the drought, or the soil, she thought. No, it's me.
After all, the stalls at the farmer's market were full of tomatoes, cucumbers, basil...but they are professionals, she thought, trying to let herself off the hook. She sighed, turned the water to a trickle and stuck one caked boot underneath. How hard could it be, really, to grow a little food? But she needed instructions! Step 1, Step 2, Step 3, starting with soil -- what kind, how much -- and ending with exactly when and how to harvest the plants.
Maybe those instructions do exist, she thought, rinsing her second boot clean, but I'm just too lazy to find them and read them, let alone follow them. It was a depressing thought, but, she felt, the most honest one she had had all day.
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