Horticulturist? Or Plant Assassin?

Despite the grass coming in nicely and the roses bloomed beautifully, it's not all coming up roses around here.  When I first started this venture, I had planted masses upon masses of seeds knowing full well I'd lose some.  I started with:

• 5 avocado pits
• 2 garlic cloves (to grow indoors mostly and just to see if I could do it)
• 2 large trough like planters full of flowers
• 4 basil
• 3 parsley
• 3 oregano
• 3 cilantro
• 3 dill
• 8 roma tomatoes
• 8 delphinium
• 1 paper cup full of daisies
• 1 pumpkin
• 1 cucumber
• 1 pinto bean

 I am now left with this:

This is all that's left of the flowers from the troughs.  No more.  Fungus Gnats attacked and by the time I got a remedy that worked, they had already done their damage.  These don't even look very well.

Just one lonely garlic.  We shall see if it lasts.

This is what's left of the cup full of daisies.  At least two of them look like they're doing pretty darn well. And down to one avocado pit.  And it's not one of the five I started in a jar.  Those all got gross after making significant progress, so I tossed them all in the trash after putting this pit in the dirt announcing to the world, "Going back to God's way of growing crap!".

Yes.  I said "crap" in the same sentence as "God".  Explains why I wasn't Raptured last week.

Here all I have left is one tomato plant... that's real dark leaved, and looking like the Leaning Tower of Pisa.  Fortunately, it's not leaning on anything to stay upright (yet) despite my poor photography skills making it look like just that.  In front of the tomato plant, I have the three remaining parsley plants that have decided they'd rather hug the ground and grow rather than reach for the glorious sunshine along with one lonely basil plant up here in the front.

On the right, I have the scotch-taped pinto bean that's been saved from a cataclysmic death by some miracle.  Maybe just because Diva and Tsunami are beautiful and God didn't want to see them sad?  Who knows.  Either way, I'm thankful it hasn't succumbed to my apparent black thumb.

And directly in front of the pinto bean is the pumpkin.

Note the plant in prepackaged material right in front - it's a cucumber plant.  That I purchased to replace the other one that I killed of Tsunami's.  I had to.  Diva wants me to make her a boat load of dill pickles.  I have no idea how to do that.  Dill, water, young cucumbers?  I don't have the first clue.  Of course, the dill all died along with the oregano, cilantro and a gazillion other plants.

I felt defeated.  I'm still feeling defeated.  I do know, however, that it's just a matter of time before I'll learn exactly how to do this.  My guess, is I'm trying to do this by the book instead of going by the way the world intended it to be - cow poop, soil, sun and water.

Since I have to wait until Bad Boy builds me a raised garden bed, I spent money instead.  Fortunately, this has cost me less than ten dollars, so I don't feel too terrible about it

First, Diva insisted on Strawberries.  So we got Strawberries.

Then I needed some pretty annuals.  And Diva insisted on these Celosia.  Which I find to be absolutely amazing and weird.

And some petunia's.

Unfortunately, a couple of the celosia are drooping.  And my strawberries leaves are browning around the edges.  So, I also purchased some plant food.  Which completely blew the $10 out of the water and hopefully assassinated my title of "Plant Assassin".