How Does My Garden Grow?

How does my garden grow?

Not at all. Nothing I planted came up.  

Except one frond emerged that indicated the potential of a carrot. One solitary carrot. When I pulled it up, it was black and sludgy. And it smelled like a backwoods outhouse.

I'm not a scientist, but I had read enough to know something had gone terribly wrong. Something in the atmosphere was making it difficult to grow crops. And it wasn't just here. It was all over the world.

Much of the world's foods had to be grown in hot houses, green environments where the air and temperature could be controlled. Only purified water was used.

Could the world's needs be met by greenhouse environments alone? No, but everyone was struggling to open as many facilities as possible.

Some of my friends insisted it was just a temporary problem, caused mainly by incompetent growers and using the wrong mix of fertilizers and chemicals. But they weren't having any more luck than I was.

Ender Fenton, down the street, had put up a fancy greenhouse. His success was mixed. The right balance was hard to get. He had to filtrate the water and air, which was hard for one untrained individual to do. Nevertheless, he showed enough promise that others were jealous of his achievement. Jealous enough that last night, some neighbors tried to raid his greenhouse and did devastating damage to it in the process.

No, I was not one of the neighbors. Yes, my family was becoming desperate, but I still had too much civility and pride. I don't mean to sound too noble. I may yet hit a breaking point.

We were in for a tough haul. Not all of us will make it through it.

It's not entirely hopeless. Amateur and small gardens and farms may be becoming a thing of the past, but governments and large industrial agriculture had the potential to thrive.  

Of course, scientists could figure out how to rebalance the atmosphere so that it was not so poisonous. Media stressed how hard the scientists worked on it, but genuine breakthroughs and progress remained theoretical.

I came inside from my failed gardening. Little Sarah was coughing, her eyes watering, her nose running. Seasonal allergies, or something more?

Maybe it wasn't just the plants that were being affected.