Have you had a bad season in the garden?
It can be sad and demotivating to spend time and money planting seeds and seedlings only to have them fail.
If you have had a bad growing season, you can come out of this hard period a better gardener. Garden failures help provide learning opportunities to make us better gardeners long term.
Read on for some positives to keep you gardening when you feel like giving up.
Learning to investigate the cause
When a crop fails in the garden, there is always a reason.
Maybe your tomato plant died because you planted it too early in the season. Maybe your zucchini crop failed because slaters ate them, maybe your cucumbers never thrived because you fertilised them too early.
Whenever a crop fails in the garden, try to learn why. Talk to an expert at a garden centre and see if they can help you find the reason. When you learn the cause of the crop failure, write it in a garden diary so you know not to repeat the same mistake in future seasons.
Diagnosing plant conditions
Your crop might have failed due to a plant condition you cannot recognise. You might notice holes in the plant’s leaves or powdery mildew on the stem or brown ends on the fruit. You can research these signs to learn the cause. Read books or take photos and share them on social media to gardening communities to find the reason. This will make you wiser for next growing season.
Improving your knowledge
When you have learnt to identify the cause of plant failures and diagnose plant conditions, you will be a wiser gardener. Not only can you stop your crop failing again in future, you can also prevent it happening to friends. When you give your friend garden advice they might be kind enough to share their harvests with you.
Planting new crops
Finally, the best part about failure in the garden is it means you probably have room in your vegetable patch for new seeds. The only thing a gardener likes more than reaping a great harvest from their garden, is getting new seeds and beginning the exciting process all over again.
Rome wasn’t built in a day and your gardening skills are not defined by one season. It’s not just gardens that grow; gardeners need to grow too, and failure helps us do just that.
– Alexis (FFH Team) 🌱
Food from Home 