I am the worst gardener in the world

I have not only managed to kill mint, that most tenacious of weeds, I have managed to kill it multiple times. The leaves invariably turn brown and drop off. After killing 2 mint plants, I went and pilfered some cuttings from an untended patch near the village parking lot, put them in a jar of water to grow new roots, only to find those leaves turning brown and dropping off too. I suck.

I finally asked the guys at Fa Hui what I was doing wrong, and they said that mint requires very, very little water and can't be placed in direct sunlight. Don't even bother to water it, said one guy, just mist the soil a little every day. This seems contrary to everything I read on the internet, but I shall try it, should any of my cuttings survive.

My basil isn't doing much better. It did great for the first few weeks I had it, but now it's simultaneously going yellow on the bottom and brown and crispy-edged on the top. What gives? A basil cutting I rooted in water rolled over and died once I planted it in potting soil, and repeated attempts at starting seeds have failed miserably. Before they put out their second set of leaves, they just wither and fall over.

My thyme, the poor straggly schizophrenic thing, is the one thing that's stayed alive since May. It was a gift from Cedric and Charlotte but was half dead when they brought it to me (having mysteriously perished overnight in their apartment). It sprung back, almost died during the heat wave, sprung back again during the rainy spell, and is now wilting again.

My absolute incompetence at keeping plants alive has driven me to troll the internet in search of a moron-proof plant watering method. Hydroculture clay pellets, converted coke bottle sub-irrigation planters, wicks made of old t-shirt... I now have an array of these experiments on my window sill. As back-up, I also acquired one plant I can not possibly drown - some kind of water weed that can be grown in a jar. Short of plastic fake plants, it's my best hope.