Black Thumb

I have never been good at keeping things alive. Plants, I mean. I've done a pretty decent job keeping my kiddo alive. That's got to be harder than growing some little vegetables, right?

A few weeks ago a friend gave me two yellow squash plants and two green squash plants. After an entire week without killing them, I figured I had the hang of it and should expand my little garden.

I picked up some seeds at Lowe's and got to work. I had my husband tear out the decorative (but half-dead) plants along the border of our back patio and fill it with a mix of topsoil and Miracle-Gro. I planted 3 rows of bush beans and 4 sugar baby watermelons. I added cilantro and oregano to my herb garden which already included chives and a pathetic shrub of basil. I also started some artichoke seeds in a pot indoors.

I got so excited when my little beans started sprouting tiny green shoots that I went back to Lowe's and bought tomatoes, jalapeño, cucumber, corn and sweet potatoes. This is when I realized that some of these plants get very large and there is no way they are going to fit in my tiny 3x8 garden. Maybe I jumped into this too fast. Ok, not "maybe." Definitely.

I'm no down-home, farmer's daughter. Growing up, the only time I spent in the garden was when my dad forced my sister and I to help weed the flower beds (I hated it because of all the bees). I've only ever mowed the grass twice. Once, when I was a teenager and my father made me. I cried the whole time. The second time was for a friend who had just had surgery. Her front yard is maybe 100 square feet and she has an electric mower. I was afraid the entire time that I would run over the extension cord, electrocute myself and instead of coming home to a beautiful lawn, my friend would find me sprawled out all black and crispy.

Obviously I survived. I can't promise the same for the garden though.