GARDENING: UR DOIN IT WRONG

Confession: I am the world's laziest gardener. Really. Remember this? Oh, it all started so promisingly, didn't it?

I had tilled up a patch of the backyard. I didn't put anything in it. I mean, no fertilizer, no compost, no store-bought soil. Mistake.

I was thoroughly spoiled at my former residence. There, I (really!) just stuck a half-dead tomato plant in the ground, and several months later I had about 100 tomatoes. Literal number. Here, not so much. The soil is very clay-y. It mats up given half a chance. And the weeds! Crab grass, I guess. I don't go outside much, and I certainly don't have time to sit on the ground for 15 minutes every day weeding. You think Crazy Babby/Super Toddler is going to let me do that? No. Not without a fight, anyway.

There's also the part where all of my cucumber and butternut squash sprouts withered away to nothing after I put them in the ground. (Probably because I didn't weather them or whatever it's called.)

Oh and I never actually got around to putting the basil, sage, or bell peppers in the ground. They're still in little pots on my windowsills, not growing, threatening to die.

So my "garden patch" looks like this:

[My actual garden, enhanced with the help of this website.]

This zucchini plant should have died, but it is obviously too stubborn.

This snow pea plant gave me two snow peas before it keeled over.


There's a tiny tomato plant in here... somewhere.
Oh! And the strawberries! I forgot about the strawberries! I bought strawberry roots and then apparently left them in the garage too long before I planted them. I tilled them up a nice little patch in the front flower bed, planted about 6 strawberry roots, and then.... nothing happened. Well, I mean the grass is back. But other than that, not so much.

There are but two success stories here -- the compost pile, and the green beans.

Here is the compost pile I started over the winter:
It digests food scraps and mostly smells like dirt, so that's a success, right?


And speaking of stubborn, here is the green bean plant:


And here are the green beans!

[Some heirloom variety of crazy-long bean.]

And here are some more that aren't done yet:


And here is your opportunity to insert a "That's what she said!" (or "Barrowman!", if you are my lovely husband or part of the new Doctor Who fandom...) joke of your choosing:


One of these years, I will be so on top of things and grow soooo much food. Sigh.