We have a garden or balcony — why is nothing growing in it?

A man once brought me his new field. 'Hodja,' he said, 'before I plant, tell me — which tree, which soil, which season is luckiest?' I told him to ask the donkey. He walked off insulted. Years later his field was still bare. The donkey, meanwhile, had eaten a fig somewhere, walked across an empty lot, and left behind — by accident, with no plan at all — a fig tree. You are not one person staring at bare dirt. You have a whole pod staring at it with you. Everyone assumes someone else knows what to plant, or that the group should decide first, together, properly. That waiting is the real weed. It grows fastest of anything in an empty garden. The fix is not a class on soil. It is one small, slightly embarrassing act of planting, done together, before the discussion is finished.