Nathan and I have been “container gardeners” for a few years now…we usually try our hand at growing one thing in pots on the deck. Really, its all we can handle. We’ve had moderate luck with tomatoes – even growing them from seeds one year.

This year, we decided to try strawberries…figuring that we wouldn’t get any this first year because thats what the lady told us at the WalMart garden center. Apparently, little did she know…because we are getting a few strawberries – small ones,…but they’re there.

My dad was here one day doing some light home repair and says to me “you just wait…when you’re getting just about ready to pick that strawberry, you’ll say – I’ll give it one more day to get a little redder, and then I’ll pick it and that day, the birds will come and eat it…”
Well, what do you know…we got the first one…but it looks like we weren’t as lucky this
second time.

Was it a bird…we may never know…but the strawberry – gone. Perhaps we’ll have better luck with the next one. You may find a picture of me guarding it day and night in my next post! I can just see it now…me, on the deck, flashlight in hand, ready to scare off the birds.

So, I thought I better take a picture of our bleeding hearts this year…because some year, I’m pretty sure they won’t be there.

When we moved in, these bushes were huge and now are only a fraction of their original size.

I’m not sure what it is about my gardening ability, or lack there of, that makes it so hard for me to keep things alive and thriving…perhaps its my indifference to most of the plants we have in our yard. These I love having though, they remind me of grandma.