Planting by trial and error
Who said growing stuff was easy? So you have a bunch of earth and you decided that you will plant something that will yield some fruit, because well you know so many people who have done it, so how hard could it be? Well, it’s tough.
I grew up in my mother’s and grandmother’s garden. I grew up smelling tomato vines and playing in the basil plants. I have encouraged my mother many times to plant more and more to get more yield out of her patch of earth, because I am greedy and want more vegetables.
I’m a chronic overthinking as most women are. I tend to talk myself out of most of the decisions I make on the daily and reassess until I cannot anymore. This is why planting vegetables and flowers is the perfect activity for me! You get to second guess every decision you make when it comes to tending to your plants. Did I water too much or not enough? Was the plant in the right place or did I use the right soil with enough nutrients? The questions are endless.
Today I found a flower on the eggplant plant I had planted in late May. Only today I found it! This is the first flower the planted has grown all season. Now what does that tell you? Did I put it in the wrong place all summer or did I overcrowd the pot with basil since I like to put plants together to increase yield. I also have a cucumber plant, which has so many flowers and has not grown a single fruit all summer. So sometimes, you are just looking at your plants with a puzzled face, wondering where you went wrong.
There are times it does work and things actually grow. I have carrots that I planted at the beginning of the season and they are now the length of my fingers! That is a pretty big win for my garden.
I don’t have a garden plot, but instead 1 raised garden bed with herbs and enough room for a couple more seasonal plants. The rest of the garden is planted in pot. I try to put them on the side of the patio that yields that most light. It’s tough growing food in the Annex, between the trees and the squirrels; it’s not an easy task.
When I go to my mom’s house, I get garden envy. They have a large piece of land to grow vegetables that is marked off by some chicken wire for the animals. Beans flourish and tomato plants explode, while the basil has grown to the largest height I have seen…ever. The overthinking gardener has envy.
I long for black soil and a small farm I can grow vegetables, like I did in the Okanagan valley. Alas all I have are these pots on a patio.
I love and hate gardening, because it is a game of trial and error. What worked last year may be a fail this year simply because you place the plant in the wrong area, in a pot with no hole for the water to drain. Great success!
The thrill of eating something that you grew is like nothing else and tastes like nothing else. It could be because you can literally taste the effort you put into the growth and care of a plant. I try to grow tomatoes in pots every year, but get frustrated because I end up with 5 tomatoes in total by the end of the season. So what to do? Give up? You cannot.
I keep watching the world grown and understand a little more about the world as I struggle through the process. Will I get an eggplant before it frosts? No idea. Will I finally get a cucumber before it’s too cold for the plant to survive? I can’t tell you. Will I plant another garden next year and go through the agony of wondering if all the money and time I gave to these plants will end up with the same result as the year before? Well, of course. I’m a glutton for pain I guess.
As I sit on my patio in the sun and avoid my cold house, I will keep overthinking what I could have done better. I do think of the progress I have made with my back yard and think of how many things we have done over the years to improve it (anyone remember the fish pond story?). Maybe next year I’ll try something else or get another garden bed. For now, I’ll enjoy the rays and the smell of lavender.
This is a fun article about trying to not overthink gardening.
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