My gardening skills disprove the adage that practice makes perfect. Every year, I plant tomato plants, basil and peppers. And every year, the basil flourishes, the peppers tease and the tomatoes bomb.
Every. Year.
Call me stubborn, because despite my lack of skills, I’m back at it. Insert your cliché of choice here about optimism.
Three weeks ago, I planted two tomato plants and four peppers. That was a little early, even for the subtropical Deep South. Note to garden stores: ’Tis malpractice to sell garden plants to bad backyard farmers before the last freeze.
Rest easy. The plants survived nicely for a couple of nights under cover or cocooned in their containers in my kitchen.
Two weeks later, I bought three lettuce plants, more peppers and – struck by looniness – a cucumber plant. Then last weekend, I added two peppers and a tomato plant.
No basil this year. Oooo! That’s my level of crazy.
So, buoyed by hope and flooded with gardener’s denial, I’ve planted my biggest crop ever. Which means – hooray – my biggest gardening failure is only months away.
More gardening failures
The Case of the Crazy Bad Gardener
“Note to garden stores: ’Tis malpractice to sell garden plants to bad backyard farmers before the last freeze.”
So true.
I look forward to seeing proof of your hypothesis.
When it comes to gardening, the best advice I was ever given is as follows: don’t get your hopes up. Between our crazy Maine weather and the voracious, always nibbling woodchucks nothing I plant in early spring survives.
🥴
Thank you for the advice!