My garden will not grow, probably because I live in Wisconsin. I always thought it would be cool to have a garden but living in a cold place, it really isn’t worth it. All the work just for fruits or vegetables for a few months of the year.

If the plants did not wilt and become lifeless in the winter and early fall when a cold wind stirs up 35 degree weather, beckoning it to come and kill my plants.  Frozen soil throws another kink in the system. Planting anything in frozen soil is like sentencing it to solitary confinement. A plant that can not stretch its roots and create a relationship with the earth. Now add soil being hard as stone, it makes it really difficult just to dig and get that plant in the ground. 

I imagine a garden full of life but instead my garden looks like a cemetery. A place plants go to die. I do try, maybe I’m just not good at gardening. I couldn’t even keep a cactus alive and all I had to do was leave it alone. 

The garden withered and gray, it feels like walking into a black and white movie. Devoid of color. The dead plants were once vibrant and shooting towards the sky, now they lay droopy and limp. The stench of rotting plants pierces into your nose, a dagger to your nostrils.  A garden filled with life would bring me great joy so I’ll keep trying for now but, until I have my garden, what is there reflects my face. A frown.