hapless but eager gardener

I have no green thumb. If I thought I had a green toe, I would gladly stick my foot in the soil. My beans get blight. My cucumbers wilt. My tomatoes flower and that's about it. Eggplant will grow for me, but even when I shelter it inside chicken wire some beastie still manages to get inside and shred it to bits.

And yet I feel good about digging and sifting earth to make it soft enough for beets. I curl tendrils of snow pea vines around the teepee poles I've built to support them. I plant blue cornflowers to attract bees. I pick arugula to stuff into my sandwich at lunch. All winter I have pesto I've made from the basil I've grown.
Sometimes another gardener is stooped over the earth or watering plants. Birds chatter in the wooded area next to our plots. Every so often a train goes by on the embankment--actually so often that I associate the sound of shunting and wheel grinding with working in my garden.

Just now, my plot doesn't look like much--an 8' x 11' rectangle of earth among other rectangles of earth. Some people have small bushes of herbs, winter onions ready to be picked, pansies already blooming. Here's my rhubarb which wintered very well, thank you.

My soil should be good this year since last year we emptied our backyard composter in the garden. Yup, that was R trundling wheelbarrows of rich, shit-stinky compost through the Pointe. After a season of snow, the compost no longer smells, though I'll have to pick out the corncobs and avocado pits that haven't decomposed yet. Or leave them.

This week I hope to seed beets, lettuce, snow peas, radishes.