Green envy

Here at Casa Metrospective, I've been dealing with some gardening challenges over the past few weeks.

The problem really stems from my neighbors: they're making me look bad. I'm flanked on either side by some very inviting backyards. The yard to the west has elegant stonework, a fountain, and the greenest patch of lawn you've ever seen. The yard to the east has several vegetable beds and two or three fruit trees.

I have a lawn made of dead thyme.

When I peek over the walls to my neighbors' backyards, I experience a horrible sense of guilt and embarrassment. The neighbors, in turn, send their cat over to crap in my yard because--in their eyes--they're living next to a giant box of kitty litter.

There is hope, however. Last night, I took a good look under all of that dead thyme, and I found thousands of little green thyme seedlings sprouting out of the ground. I've also been comparing rosemary bushes, and mine blows theirs out of their well-manicured backyards.

I look at my neighbor's yards and see an oasis. They look at mine and see mise en place for roast chicken.

But, it's still early in the season: summer is six weeks away, after all. There's plenty of time for me to get my act together. We'll see how the neighbors feel when I'm overrun with vegetables in early August, and I have to start coming up with creative uses for hundreds of cherry tomatoes.