"Despite the gardener's best intentions, Nature will improvise." --Michael P. Garafalo

So I've been working on the garden for the last month, and I am trying to let my few triumphs outweigh my larger failures. I am terrible with plants and kill things with regularity, and so far the tally is not in my favor. Despite my best efforts, I killed all the raspberries and boysenberries and mint (I'll have to try replanting them next year, but as someone said, every time one of my plants dies, I die a little inside too), but I have managed to keep the tomatoes and pepper plants alive and got radishes, squash, and zucchini to sprout.

I'm having a hard time because there are so many unknown variables, and I really don't know what I am doing. Honestly, the unpredictability is killing me. They say that anticipation is one of the best rewards of a garden. I'm merely hoping that this year I can eat something from the garden that tastes approximately like a vegetable.

As I've read about gardening, some people wax rapturously about the serenity, the glory of it. I keep tiptoeing around trying not to crush what might be a seedling (or possibly a weed--I'm still working on figuring it all out; and yes, next year I'll make visible hills and label them, so I actually can figure out where I've planted things). However, some have also written that gardens bestow humility, that they can be unpredictable. The variables are killing me, but I think it's really valuable for me to learn to let go some, to try something that I don't feel comfortable with and learn as much as I can this year so I can try it again next year.

Some day I hope to feel like Douglas William Jerrold, who said "Earth is here so kind, that just tickle her with a hoe and she laughs with a harvest." Until then, I'm hoping for patience with both the garden and myself and maybe a little unexpected joy when I finally get to eat something out of it!