Terrarium Watch 2009 - January

For Christmas, Vicki made terrariums for everyone. (Mine - the giant glass pear - was totally the best one.) It looks perfect sitting on the kitchen table.

However, no one - including me - thinks I can keep this thing alive. I have a notoriously black thumb... I have killed SO many plants. I do have one plant on the kitchen counter that's lived since my first college apartment, but I think that thing must be magic, and - poor thing - it has had to fight back from death so many times. Everything else I've tried - dead meat.

(**Wait, one second here... I did keep the pineapple plants alive for 6 years: 1999-2004. Saunders sent me two pineapples from Hawaii in the summer of 1999, and I cut off the tops and planted them. They got huge! They lived in my apartment, my parents' house, and our first house, but they got gnats in the soil in summer of 2004. I didn't know what to do about it, and Saunders couldn't stand the little fruit fly-type gnats flying around the pots, so he threw them out in the backyard one day without telling me. I cried when I saw them because I'd worked so hard to take care of them, but I have to admit the gnats were getting on my nerves, too. But, I don't think that technically counts as me letting those die.)

So, I've been REALLY trying to keep this terrarium alive... A) because I like it, B) because I don't want Vicki to think I neglected it to the point of letting all her hard work die, and C) it is a challenge! I've made sure it gets sunlight (almost) every day and watered it infrequently, as per instructions.

It has made it through one month of living with me! Hooray! I'm going to do a "Terrarium Watch" on the blog to help keep me accountable. Every last day of the month, I'll post a picture of the terrarium so you all can see how it is doing. Hopefully, you'll see a pretty green fern in the terrarium each month. If you ever see an empty glass pear, you'll know the mission failed!