Green Business? Absolutely. Green Thumb? Uh, No.

Pictured here is my small terrace garden in Tel Aviv. It’s deceptive. While it looks like I can grow most anything, the truth is the reverse. My gardening abilities are limited to basil, rosemary, thyme, and oregano. And frankly, if you fuck those up here in the Mediterannean, you really do have issues.

My inability to garden is actually shameful. My hippy-ish health-nut ceramicist mother could grow forests (and did). My daughter and her boyfriend have this amazing garden on their balcony. My son and his roommate have an herbal eden. My ex-wife Nirit is growing gorgeous broccoli on her rooftop. My good friend Miriam, who in her spare time is building my website, is teaching the Guatemalan sisterhood about hydroponics. My former business partner Patty has this amazing garden in her back yard, Her husband Frank also has the green touch. Former business colleagues like Farmer D have gardening programs of their own. In short, you would think that someone who is fastidious in the kitchen, particularly about fresh ingredients, could handle a basic garden. It’s one of those stereotypes that, unfortunately, I happen to disprove.

So I thought, perhaps, I would confess to my gardening inabilities publicly, in the hope that this self-shaming might lead eventually to redemption. Unfortunately, we know from a famous deconstructionist reading of Augustine, that Confessions are far more convoluted than that.