Professional Plant Murderer

I kill plants for a living.  Really, I feel like this every spring and summer.  I inevitably start the growing season full of energy and excitement, and I run off buying seed kits and soil only to murder my little seedlings before they even make it a few weeks.  It's not that I completely neglect them...I just have no idea where I go wrong.

Plant Graveyard?

photo by M. Markus

This year, I was inspired to make a fresh start.  Mark (my fiancé) and I are just finishing an intense diet and workout routine called P90X, and it's shifted our diet toward more fruits and vegetables.  Our weekly grocery trips have gotten pretty expensive as a result, so I wanted to offset that cost a bit by trying to grow our own.  On a side note: living in a townhouse with a tiny yard whose soil is mostly clay means you have to buy lots of pots and lots of soil.  This isn't the cost-saving I had in mind.  :/

Anyway, I bought a whole host of gardening books.  I wanted to do this right.  I may have gone a bit overboard...but so far this year, there have been no plant murders at my hands...yet.  This morning, I got the shot in the arm I needed to continue.  One of our strawberry plants is starting to form minuscule little fruits for us!  Hooray!  There's hope!