Farewell Professional Gardening Career

i suppose i'll need to purchase and read several gardening magazines, because my hand certainly lacks a green thumb.  i don't understand it.  i like to entertain, i love antiques and yard sale discoveries, i'm a pretty good cook, and i am mildly creative.  Doesn't being a great gardener just fall right in to place with those qualities?  

Apparently not.

For my first ever home-grown crop i planted banana peppers, jalapeno peppers and yellow bell peppers.  I had heard, Lord knows where, that pepper plants prove to be stronger than others and successful in nearly every environment.  Well that can't be right, but you get the idea-- "A fool can grow a pepper."

This fool has produced three pretty, but fairly weak looking pepper plants.  i keep talking to them, watering them...and yes cheating with the Miracle Grow...  The plants keep growing, seemingly smiling, though meekly, back at me.  And last week a banana pepper appeared!  A glorious, baby banana!

i cannot begin to describe my excitement.  Everyone i came across knew about my pepper.  i began dreaming about how we would use the fruit when it was ready to harvest. If the plant produced nothing else, i would be satisfied with my one perfect pepper.

The next day i bought the 2010 Oxford American, Southern Food Edition, and found this statement in an article written by Warwick Sabin: 

"It used to be that keeping a few free-range chickens, tending some grain-fed hogs, and raising a small vegetable garden was how people simply survived.  Now these are often vanity projects for young hipsters and retired hedge-fund executives who have discovered the forgotten pleasures of 'heirloom' tomatoes and artisanal sausage.  Incredibly, we've reached a point in our society where things that humans have done for thousands of years-- grow a vegetable, smoke or cure a piece of meat--now provide the grounds for smug satisfaction."

A valid, heart wrenching point.  "However," i thought, "this is just the first step.  Soon i will be growing vegetables with the best of them.  If not for survival, at less shocking checkout at Publix."  My smugness was still allowable.

i skipped out the next morning to sing to the little pepper, "Oh what a beautiful morning. Oh what a beautiful day. i've got a beau....."  It was lying in the soil.  By the looks of the crime, a sneaky snail ripped the fruit off the plant, had a tiny snack bite, then left it there to rot in shame.  

Failure.  

This fool can't grow a pepper.

But i'll keep watering and keep singing and keep hoping that something else will grow.

And i'm happy to take suggestions....