Hosts at garden tours do not have dirt-embedded fingernails. There is no "essence of compost" smell about them. After months of coaxing chunks of Midwestern dirt into a knockoff of the gardens at Versailles, they emerge as well-coiffed as their lawns.

Anyone other than a Master Gardener would be convalescing, not cavorting. An observer could believe that to pick-and-shovel an Amazon-like rain forest, an oriental water garden, or a mossy topiary of a warthog was more fun than an afternoon at a Sandals resort.

Gardening novices who are enticed by this image don't dig deeper (pun intended) to consider joint aches, muscle strains, heat exposure, and watering obsessions until it is too late. By then, their gardens are the envy of the neighborhood, so what's a little pain.

The only way I'd have a home surrounded by beautiful blooms and rows of organic vegetables would be if a local gardening group, desperate for publicity, adopted my yard for a makeover.

Garden centers are not to blame for my shortcomings, any more than my beautician is to blame when my haircut doesn't make me look like a magazine model. It wasn't their fault that I endured cultivation calamity. There was nothing wrong with the seeds, potted plants, shrubs, and instruction tags. It was me.

I was troubled at stage one, when the seeds were sown. The new, green sprouts were not to be admired; they were to be thinned. "Thinning" is a euphemistic term for "random destruction." I was not a sprout assassin, so I left the choice for Mother Nature. She killed them all.

I moved on to established plants with a simple pot-to-garden transfer. They thrived until wild squatters overran their turf. On the minus side, these self-starters were prickly and the flowers, if they had any, were as small as gnats. On the plus side, they asked for nothing, thrived without water, and reached impressive heights. The botanic world encourages profiling. These were "noxious weeds." I had to yank them out, even if it left me with nothing but bare spots.

Shrubs matured into unruly masses that required more clipping than a poodle. The bulbs overslept and missed the first spring. Later, to get even with me for not subdividing their entangled roots, they produced meager, washed-out blossoms and multitudes of scraggly stalks. Success apparently required more than tilling the soil and regular watering. Master Gardeners, it seems, achieve artistic results by working as Servant Gardeners.

But it was fun playing in the dirt—so much so that I refused to wash my hands of the project. Edibles would be my niche. If I couldn't make stuff look good, at least I could plant stuff that tasted good. With gusto I scattered herbs, tomatoes, peppers, squash, and beans in the soil like a Midwestern Jackson Pollack. Basil flourished. Hello, pesto! Sage was as aggressive as an enemy combatant. Misshapen vegetables, my forte, were pleasing to the taste if not the eye. It was not a bumper crop, just enough to keep squirrels, rabbits, neighbors, and me content for a few summers.

Then came the dry spells, when the produce was stunted and decayed. It was time for a smart squirrel with a passion for tomatoes to migrate up the street. The soil needed 911, desperately.

Help was under the sink. The tonic was coffee grinds, egg shells, and fruit and vegetable scraps, fermented outdoors. I then worked into the soil this seasoned garbage, or compost, turned periodically. The dirt, now dark and moist, was farm ready.

The new concoction was so robust that it began without me. Volunteer vegetables, the offspring from meals long forgotten, reintroduced themselves. I had the thrill of surprise that people who conscientiously plan their gardens never experience. It's exciting to wonder what manner of squash, tomato, or melon will be harvested.

Recycling garbage has brought me back to nature on a level I can handle. Let others create their fine landscapes. There is room on this planet for the Obstinate Gardener and the Master Gardener.

I am waiting for my "green" way to alternative, unpredictable gardening to catch on.

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