Ultimate Fruits of 2011 Gardening; Or, How I Have Learned

I'm not a gardener.
My dad is, but I'm not.

I'm hoping that there's some sort of positive, genetic connection that will give me great talent, wisdom, or perhaps even luck, for my planned 2012 garden.

The above picture is pretty much the height of success I had last year in my community garden plot.

I spoke briefly (but sadly far too soon) about the rambunctious growings of my pumpkin plants this summer.
The suckers ended up getting fuzzy mildew and I got one good, ripe pumpkin out of it. Well, two, but someone stole one before I harvested it.

This picture below is one I took (clearly months ago!) of my backyard.
For this year's garden, I suppose it's not human thieves I need to be concerned with, but rather the local cats (a number of which I've already met, as has Elbie!¹) and likely ravenous birds.

This L-shaped strip of garden will, with hope and plans and fingers crossed, become my fruitful joy of the season.
We'll see.

But for now, I've ordered my seeds, and am anxiously awaiting their arrival.

I think I just like getting mail, since it's certainly not because I can plant them. I can't even start the wee ones out for months!
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¹ At the risk of sounding like a doting mother, I have another Elbie story for you.
When I was moving in to the new place, I was parked across the street and physically toting a couple boxes or two to the front porch, and then would lug them inside.
Well, didn't I just take the risk of leaving Elbie on the porch for a very short second, to jog across the street and grab one more box.
And don't you know, without a lie or hyperbole of any sort, three neighbourhood cats appeared mere moments after his cage was set down and began, very interestedly, trotting up to my poor lovebird.