So here’s the deal: I’m not a gardener. 

I have other good qualities. I can bake, tell a story, sew, make a wedding cake. I love to hike and swim and run–on trails, in ponds, on dirt roads. I love flowers and food, the fresh kind that come right out of the dirt. I know what to do with these things. I’ve made a living at it for a long time.

It’s not like I don’t like plants. I have house plants. They have names. I haven’t killed one yet. I have been accused, on occasion, of being a treehugger. And, I admit to having actually done it. Hello, I’m from California. 

Which I think is part of the problem. Everything grows in California. I never thought about it. You just clear a patch of dirt, plant some seeds, and poof! Salad. There are no gardeners in California, just gardens. 

So, imagine my shock when my first garden in Maine didn’t take. Nor did the second one. The third was a riotous patch of weeds. The fourth existed only on paper. Last season’s, grown in a patch of dirt I felt confident could raise the dead, was eaten in a single bingeful night by the island deer. 

Along with my humility, my respect for those who can coax a garden here on the island has grown a hundredfold. It is not effortless. In a place that is mostly rock and water, they have made soil from seaweed, crab shells and kitchen waste. Knowing this, in July I look around and think, these gardens are the most beautiful in the world. These gardeners, magicians.

Not that I’m giving up. I’m learning. And my desire to have a garden far outweighs this slight dread of the amount of work that goes into it. And yet, yesterday: a single, smiling daffodil yawning up from the winter duff. Simple, effortless.

Kate Shaffer is a contributing writer to MF&L, Chocolatier, and resident of Isle au Haut.