I thought I was good at math and bad at gardening

I've always been pretty good at math (except maybe first year calculus!). 

And, I've always been pretty lousy at growing anything and keeping plants alive.  You don't believe me?  Here are some examples.

- Only kid in elementary science class who didn't have a bean sprout after we planted them?  Me.

- Who over-watered and likely killed several of our friends' HUGE collection of plants when they asked me (WHY did they ask ME? Or more fairly to them - WHY did I agree?!?!) to water them while they went away one winter when we lived in Calgary?  Yup, me again.

- Who has a track record hovering at about 50-50 of keeping a cactus as a house plant?  You got it.  Me!  I mean, really, who can't keep a cactus alive and thriving?!?!

So, when the brilliant idea of growing some vegetables and flowers with Leighton last summer came up, I considered nixing it to avoid disappointing Leighton if nothing grew.  But after my mom and Leighton planted everything, I must say, I surprised myself and we managed to grow some beans and keep the flowers pretty all summer.  Admittedly, Leighton was kind of in charge of the watering though!  I will confess that the carrots didn't make it.  But that wasn't my fault.  Some animal (likely a bunny) ate all the tops off!

This spring, we did some more planting (see here and here for more details), and although I haven't given much of an update since March, our plants have been doing really well.  Leighton enjoyed several beans until the plants got knocked around in a windy storm and stopped happily producing more.  Our habaneros and tomatoes stayed green for many, many weeks, but over the last two weeks they've gotten a lot of color.  Leighton has picked and snacked on a few red, ripe tomatoes (and a bird got one of them first) and Roy is about ready to pick his peppers (and now I've got "How many peppers did Peter Piper pick?" stuck in my head!).  I've used some of the basil and cilantro and parsley.  And the sad lavender perked up and is living a happy life.  Unfortunately, the original happy lavender got stuck in a rain storm last week and got very, very sad.  I have tried to re-pot it with some drier soil and hope it can be revived.  I even managed to plant some flowers in the front that are still going strong.

I had planned to plant a bunch more vegetables and fruits in the garden a couple months ago, but for a variety of reasons, the seeds were left in the packages.  I wasn't sure if it was too late in the season to plant them, but we had the seeds and the soil, so last Sunday we gave it a shot.  We planted watermelon, pumpkin, butternut squash, zucchini, cucumber, beets, and more beans and carrots.  All of the packages said the seeds had a 7-10 or a 10-14 day germination period.  So I was prepared to water and wait, wait and water.

Imagine my surprise when we saw this little bean plant coming up on Wednesday.  Like I said before, I am pretty good at math, but I doubted my abilities a little when I counted that these only took 3 days!

Look how fast they have continued to grow.
Thursday:

 
Friday:

Saturday:

And everything else is up and growing super fast too.

And the last to show up was the watermelon:

This week, we will likely need to thin some of these out.  Good thing my mom will be here to help me with that.  I am sure I'd mess it up on my own.

For the time being, I think my opinion of my math skills is accurate, but maybe I need to reconsider whether I think I am bad at gardening.  I will wait to see if any of these produce fruits and vegetables to make a firm decision.  Right now, these little plants are making me look too good!