Thou Shalt Not Kill.

I have posted a few other times about my little garden that Thomas and I planted in April. It was doing pretty darn good (sorry, I know that is not the proper usage of good), and my ultra-chic tomato tree I purchased from QVC was doing better than I ever expected.

I was getting tons of tomatoes from both the tree and my garden. On top of that, Thomas had only “harvested” a few vegetables a little too soon. I was feeling pretty proud of myself. My thumb was beginning to turn a shade of green I never had expected. I was feeling so….Molly Mormonish, and if you know me, you know I love that feeling!

We even had people over for dinner one night and the conversation went something like this…

Guest: Oh, Amy! This is fantastic bruschetta!
Me: Oh, please stop…really go on.
Guest: The tomatoes are so refreshing. Where did you find them?
Me: With a grin on my face…Well, brace yourself, I grew them! Come outside, jump in the tractor and let me give you a tour of my fields (okay, this last part of the conversation really didn’t happen, but it sounded better than... Oh, I grew them. Do you wanna see the garden I planted in a kiddie pool I bought from The Wal Mart?)

Then the real heat came on. It all went down hill from there.

You see, when you live in Hell for 3 months of the year, you need to water things…a lot. I started out really vigilant. I would water everything every day, I would fertilize, and go out and coddle the little buds. I talked to them, sang to them, and told them funny jokes. Then I got sidetracked with other things, like cooking, cleaning, wiping butts, and stepping on legos. I started to let the cool air-conditioned house tell me little lies like, “oh, one day without water won’t hurt anything.” Or, “Come on, do you really think those veggies have a chance out there in that inferno?”

I started to listen to the air-conditioning and began to forget about my little garden on purpose. I would keep our shutters closed so I wouldn’t have to look at my crops baking away in the scorching heat. I gave up on them.

The day before we left for Washington, I went out to have a look and found my poor little garden infested with ants. I finally had a solid reason to let it die. I wiped my hands clean of the whole ordeal and made peace with the garden. It was time to pull the plug. I was going to let it die while we were out of town.

It's been a month since that heavy decision was made. Since then, I have had several friends ask me about my garden. They want to know when they are going to get that nice bottle of homemade pickles, or jar of salsa. I have changed the subject in many of these conversations, or just flat out lied because I just couldn’t bring myself to admit what they probably already knew...

My name is Amy, and I kill green things.