text:  Gardening, fertility, I joked to my husband Charlie, on those rare days when I had a sense of humor about it, had never really been my thing. Seeds I planted did not sprout. Flowers withered. Tomatoes stayed green on the vine right up until the frost. As an experiment during one of those bitter, bitter summers, before I managed to get pregnant with Isabella, I planted five zucchini hills, and I didn't get a single zucchini.