The first casualty

My attempts at gardening go like this: I get all revved up to have a garden, buy the plants, plant them, and then they die. We used to jokingly call the little plastic tabs that identify the plant and how to care for it gravestones since I put those in the ground as well. You would think I would give up, but every year I am bound and determined to make it work. Where most people have patience, I have an extra dose of stubbornness.

My garden is only 3 days old and I already have my first casualty. Actually, garden is a very loose term given that I only planted 4 tomato plants and the blueberry plant I bought last year that actually survived Charlie "watering" it for me. The lemon cucumber and strawberry plants are in the huge planters that had very nice plants in them when we bought the house. They lasted about a month under my care.

According to the little gravestone, it appears the beefsteak tomato plant is not going to survive. I couldn't decide which kind of tomato plants I wanted, and since they were 4 for $5, I bought 4 different types. Isn't variety the spice of life? In this case, I needed the gravestones to tell them apart since they all look the same to me. I am a little disappointed that one of them is already on its last legs, but it actually isn't my fault. Sammy stepped on it right after I put it in the ground. I tried to just add more dirt to prop it up but it doesn't look like that did the trick. But at least for once I didn't kill it, which is morbidly comforting.

On the bright side, I stopped at the grocery store on my way to an impromptu BBQ yesterday and they had pansies. So I got my pansies. No pomeranians this time-although there were a couple of very cute men from Fire and Rescue at the store that I definitely would have allowed to follow me home.