You have a good eye and your crop and addition to the background and foreground were good and improved the piece! Keep at it and have fun with it too.

My art teachers used to keep a piece of mat board cut out like a frame (basically a rectangle with a square hole in it, then when you work on a piece you can hold it over it in different spots and see if you like it better cropped or subject matter in a new spot etc, It helps train the eye and sometimes if you have a piece you don't like, you suddenly see it different cropped and you are happy with it again.
Keep painting!