Well, it’s been around 3 months since I did an official garden update. What happened during those, supposedly the most productive months? Nothing. Nothing at all. Which is why I didn’t update: there was nothing to say.

The tomato plants got huge, around 7 feet tall/long, but never produced anything. NOT ANYTHING AT ALL.

Finally, the vines started dying out and I got sick of looking at the brown leaves and cut them all down.

There was one bright spot, one hope in my heart that I would have a single product for all my labor. Behold, one bell pepper as it began to grow:

It ripened and started turning red…

(Sorry for the blurriness, my iPhone didn’t know how to focus on the pepper instead of the leaves and no, I still don’t know how to use our DSLR.)

In this picture, you can even see it almost at it’s full-red glory:

(That’s also a good shot of after I cut down most of the tomato plants. I left one, thinking it had a bud. I was wrong, it didn’t. I cut it down this week.)

What became of the Red Bell Pepper 2012? See, that’s the thing. I couldn’t tell when I should pick it. Was it going to get bigger? I didn’t want to pick it if it was going to get bigger. I left it on a long time, while we were in California. When we got back, it had a horrible black spot. This is what had happened:

As you can see, it apparently rotted on the vine. The only thing I successfully grew, and it was inedible, it died before it had a chance to live. It’s a metaphor for life. Or something.

I also had one other thing die on the vine: a squash. Here it is before it died – it had grown on the outside of our chicken barrier, it’s vines pushing through to make it possible. It was planning to grow into adulthood.

But, no. The vine itself actually shriveled and died from inside the garden, leaving the poor undeveloped squash with no nourishment outside the barrier. Weird. Also probably a metaphor for life.

As you can see, I have a truly terrible black thumb. I thought I could overcome this tendency with information from the internets, but that was a mistake.

Having lost all faith in SproutRobot.com, I have no idea where to turn now if I want to try to kill other varieties of plants over the fall months. What other things can I plant in the ground and then watch falter and die? Should I just plant dollar bills because that is a more direct way to accomplish what is truly happening here?

However, my unreasonable hope springs eternal. My bell pepper plants are still alive & kicking, although I have no idea why since I have mentally given up on them. Some of them have buds. Will they ever grow into actual peppers? Will they all suffer the terrible fate of Red Bell Pepper 2012? I will let you know. I’m sure it’s a metaphor for life.