A term I’ve used often in the world of gardening is this: No matter how much you know about gardening, there’s always more to learn.
Any time you’re at the mercy of a force more powerful than you, full control will never be yours to claim. Which for me, is what I love about gardening. Some people see those twists and turns and the results as mistakes. I see them as opportunities, even when I have no one to blame but myself. To this day, I have plenty, and I embrace every one.
My biggest mistake ever was made just in the last year or so. It was epic. In fact, it was so bad, some friends implored me to keep it quiet. They feared that my credibility as an expert could be put on the line if publicly exposed on national TV. I have to admit, it was a compelling argument. And it was my decision to conceal it from the world—or not.
Here are my 3 biggest mistakes, starting with the big one:
1. Failing to consider persistent herbicides in composted manure. Ironically, I speak around the country warning people of the very thing I was guilty of doing myself. When you put composted manure in your garden that contains persistent herbicides, you will be sorry!
Here’s why. Some herbicides used by farmers to keep broadleaf weeds at bay don’t break down for a very long time. When whatever is harvested (in my case hay for our horses), the herbicide is still active in the harvested product. And here’s the crazy part. It doesn’t break down, even after it’s passed through the digestive track of the animal and composted for months! Just a few parts per billion when added into your garden soil can have devastating effects to your plants, as it did with mine.
In my haste to start my new garden, I was anxious to utilize the mountain of composted manure I had been collecting and storing for just such an occasion. My eager desire to use the manure rendered me blind to the same risk I had warned thousands of people about before me. Within a week, my seedlings began showing the obvious signs of my irreversible mistake.
You can read a lot more about the details of what happened, and how I planned to fix the problem here. You can even watch the episode where I reveal my mistake of using killer compost on national television. (That segment starts at about 15:25 on the timeline).
2. Planting too closely. Here is yet another case of do as I say, not as I do. In case you didn’t now, I have a very large garden. Even so, and in spite of preaching about the ill effects of planting too closely, I can’t help myself.
The problem with this affliction is that you deny plants ample room to grown. They become crowded, air can’t circulate around the plants sufficiently, leaves stay wet too long, and diseases are the inevitable result. Unfortunately it takes extreme discipline (something I still lack apparently) to allow ample spacing between such small seedlings.
This season, many of my plants (especially tomatoes) were sent to the great compost pile in the sky far too early. Had I allowed sufficient space for their size at maturity, I could have avoided their early decline.
3. Not starting. Strange as it sounds, I suppose the only thing worse than planting too closely, is not planting at all, at least for a gardener.
In my case, I have a goat problem. It’s just the two of them, but we love Bonnie and Clyde. They’re like big lazy dogs. All they do is lay around the farm and soak up the sun…and eat. And therein lies the problem. They eat everything! Anything I plant and don’t protect is gone as soon as they find it.
I know, it’s my fault. The truth is, I’ve procrastinated. Yes, we could easily put our goats in the pasture and be done with it. The bigger problem is that I’ve lost over two years of growth and opportunity to have plants and trees establishing and filling in my landscape for the beauty and enjoyment of all.
Again, do as I say, not as I do. Don’t wait to plant. Even if you have a goat problem, don’t delay. A common problem with gardeners is the fear of planting in the wrong place, or not knowing exactly what to plant where. So nothing happens. Big mistake.
Worst case, plants might die. But more than likely, you’ll find a better place and move them, or they will adapt right in place.
You might even be surprised by how nicely your serendipitous design works out. But you’ll never know until you try. I regret missing two years of growing time that I can’t get back. Don’t be me. Just plant it (but not too closely).
To be sure, I have many more mistakes and opportunities then I’ve listed here. But I’m happy to share them with you in hopes that I might prevent you from doing the same. If you can learn at my expense, good for you. Gardening is all about shared experiences. Which is why I decided to reveal my big killer compost disaster with the world. If I prevented even one person from making the same mistake (and I did in spades), then it was well worth it.
Question: Now it’s your turn. I’d love to hear what you consider to be one of your biggest gardening mistakes, and most importantly, what you learned from it? Share your story below.
About Joe Lamp'l
Joe Lamp'l is the Host and Executive Producer of the award winning PBS television series Growing A Greener World. Off camera, Joe dedicates his time to promoting sustainability through his popular books, blog, podcast series, and nationally syndicated newspaper columns. Follow Joe on Twitter
Hi Joe,
I’ve ordered a Big Yellow Bag and wanted to ask if you are familiar with the company. I want to make sure their compost is safe for my vegetable garden. What’s your take? Thanks & I love your show!
Susan, I make and use my own compost for my vegetable garden. According to their label, Big Yellow Bag is OMRI listed for organic gardening. To find out more about the Organic Materials Review Institute visit their site at https://www.omri.org/ . Here is a link for more information about what products are used to make the soil in the BYB in Georgia. http://blog.soil3.com/bigyellowbag-journeys-to-georgia . The biggest challenge is knowing what and where materials come from that go into the compost. If all the materials are coming from organic farms this is ideal. I hope this helps. Thanks for watching. Keep growing a greener world.
I live in an apartment complex and we have above ground plant beds 4x6by 3 foot tall. This is the first year we have planted in it. We are getting produce but having trouble with green peppers. What vegetables work best in the same containers. We have 5 areas to plant in. Surprisingly we have cantaloupe and watermelon doing well. We need a design plan. Love your tips Also need to know what to add to the soil for best growth of tomatoes bell peppers etc. Thank you
Ruth, the best advice I can give is to do a search on our website for the terms you are curious about. I’ve written a lot about these topics so I do have the answers you are looking for. But, it’s beyond the scope of what I can answer here because it’s a lot of information. Please go here: https://www.growingagreenerworld.com and use the search field at the top of any page to type in terms like “raised beds” or healthy soil” or “vegetable gardening”, etc. Good luck!
I had a large amount of compost delivered from a horse farm. I just bought this house and was establishing several flower gardens and a raised bed for vegetables. Nothing was growing like it should. I had ONE zucchini and the tomatoes never really developed. I had no idea what was happening – until I saw your show. I paused it and called my son into the room. Your tomato leaves looked exactly like mine. Thank you so much for sharing your mistake – it identified my problem. This year we’re emptying the raised bed and starting over. I have to leave the top dressing on the flower beds – they were covered with mulch and leaves. Hopefully, they won’t be too bad.
Thank you for your show and all of the great information!
Wow. That is exactly why we chose to share that info Diane. Glad you discovered the problem. Good for you to be able to empty those beds. I wasn’t able to do that and it’s taken 3 years to restore the soil to 95% pre horse manure days.
Thanks for writing.
Yes, I did the same thing. I planted WAY too closely and couldn’t reach things. I got very discouraged.
I’m so glad you aired this episode! When I heard what happened I was jolted to attention. I said . . .well I can’t repeat what I said, but I swore to redouble my efforts to find safe manure for my garden. I can’t wait to watch you and your garden recover. This issue makes you the most important gardening show to follow in my opinion, as this could happen to any of us. Then what?
Dear Joe,
I love reading your articles & watching your episodes online. I may be off target in suggesting this, but I feel that by incorporating a “Permaculture principle” education mix into your organic teachings, you could literally minimize many challenges in organic farming & really simplify it in many ways. Even a home backyard gardener could potentially creat & produce sufficient mulch, compost & produce to satisfy many or most of his family’s needs by appropiatly applying “permaculture principles” into the garden system.
For instance water is critical & any time even a home gardener can capture & utilize their own rain water by storing & or allow for extended time for soakage in dryer areas; means better sustainability potential.
To make my point short, I would love to see more episodes visiting farms or home gardeners practicing Permaculture principle methods. I feel it to be a very well rounded style of producing the most nutritious & abundant amount of food per space while actively also building a continuous supply of healthy soil & in harmony with the surrounding environment. I feel very encouraged by seeing how others living in different conditions have adapted to their environment & discovered a successful method of farming in harmony with their natural habitat. One which is sustainable, requiring less inputs, labor & still productive.
Hi Judy. You’re not off target at all. In fact we continue to look for ways to feature topics that may not be as familiar to the masses, but are important concepts to cover under the Growing a Greener World umbrella. You may likely already be familiar with the episode we did all about permaculture in season 3 (here’s the link: https://www.growingagreenerworld.com/episode321/), but we also featured Jessie Bloom, a Seattle-based landscape designer, in episode 523. Her new book, Practical Permaculture has just been released.
Thanks for taking the time to share your thoughts here Judy. They are always welcome!
Joe, Love your show and website etc. I tend to be a podcast junkie and really hope you get back to doing one on a regular basis. I listen to Bob Webster, Howard Garret, John Dromgoole etc. Anyone that teaches organics and several that don’t just for balance. Here in Kentucky it is tough to get organic information and products. That leads to one of my biggest mistakes, well issues is more like it. I live pretty much in the middle of farm land that rotates between corn one year and wheat and beans the next. As is the case with most farmers the GMO craze is a normal way of business. The Round up ready seeds allow them to spray not only Round Up but other herbicides as needed. Since I am just feet away no matter where I have my garden I tend to get “overspray” and it really can do a lot of damage to my plants. I have come up with a couple tricks but still I tend to lose some crop to this issue.
The other problem is with insects. The farmers do spray for several and this seems to allow them to move to my organic non-chemical garden and make a home. I use several organic practices to keep them in check but if I’m not on top of things every day (who can do that when you have to make a living) before I know it I have issues. Mostly with the insects being vectors for diseases. Hard to grow cucumbers or beans at all but hey I’m experimenting every year and I will learn how to knock this down.
Beneficial insects are a big weapon I us and so far I have seen better results but not 100% yet.
My third issue is too much shade in places. But I have adapted by planted more shade tolerant plants in those areas and expanding to a different area of my yard for sun loving plants.
Thanks for your efforts,
Joe, I can empathize all to well with the planting too close, and worse, not thinning adequately! My farm is on 40+ acres of Missouri Ozark rock so I had to build raised beds and bring in good topsoil. Because i feel like I have to fill them up, my harvests and plants suffer! I vow to be better this year. Another failure has been I try to use my raised beds as “repositories” for my root crops like carrots, parsnips, etc. They do well till the first hard freezes (single digits and lower) then I lose them to freezes. I mulch but apparently the elevated beds freeze more thoroughly and hence freeze the roots. I will just have to pull them and store in the basement or can them. I love your show, my 10 year old son watches with me. Good luck this coming year!!
My husband and I run a community garden at our church here in Worth Illinois. Last year we too used compost that had persistent herbicide. It wasn’t until I saw your episode that I finally realized why our garden did so poorly. Our tomatoes, beans, cucumbers were deformed and died before we were half the way through the year. My fear is that the herbicides will linger so long that we may not have a productive harvest for years to come. Our garden has been a wonderful source of food over the past 10 years for the needy in our neighborhood. Our best bet will be to follow your advice in turning our soil a few times before we plant, keep our fingers crossed and hope for the best. Thanks for an awesome show!
Hello. I live in North Central Texas, zone 7b-8a. We moved to a new house with a larger back yard. My blunder is the location of the garden in the new back yard. I get a lot of shade, not good for tomatoes and squash. I really thought I had scoped it out a lot better, but not. So I will have to set up another garden spot, near my small greenhouse ( a birthday gift from my husband). My husband gave the tree near my large garden location, what he calls, an “up-do”. I am going back into the fight, so to speak. Looking forward to more interaction.
I always wanted raised beds with an edge instead of just raised soil so I spent countless hours making beds edged with recycled cement pool pavers , the 12×6 kind to which I had plenty. When finished it looked rather nice , even if they weren’t as wide as I’d like. I thought the plants would benefit from the added warmth of the sun absorbing into the pavers to the plants. What I thought would be helpful turned into a hindrance. The raised beds needed constant watering which in turned leached out all the nutrients. Everything floundered that summer. The pavers were removed later that summer but it was too late for a good recovery.
We have lived in this property going on 17 years. It has taken a lot of hard work to landscape areas of the property. One of my projects was a line of Leyland Cypress trees at the front of the property. I really wanted to incorporate hollys, cedar and other trees into the mix. They are well over 20 feet tall. Last summer some of them started losing branches at the bottom of the tree. I thought I was going to lose the whole row. They look a little better after I pruned the dead out, but I know eventually we will probably lose some of them (hopefully not all) . My regret is not taking the time to intermix the row and not making a higher berm before planting. I planted a second row of trees on the side of the property and I used a “Thuja” there. It’s slower growing, but more disease resistant. I’ll do better in my next life
Such an important lesson here Gladys. I inherited a line of mature Leyland Cypress as well (60 of them all in a row like soldiers). They are beautiful but I cringe at the thought of them all eventually succumbing to irreversible disease. Monocultures like that can be devastating. The best time to take action is when you have that blank slate and choices. It takes discipline, courage, and most of all, a long-term vision. But the results are always best. It’s far easier to address that right up front. It’s what I call proactive vs. reactive garden planning.
I love this show and learn something new with each episode. I run an organic greenhouse and organic gardens for adults with developmental disabilities. Even though I’ve been doing this for ten years (and into organic gardening for 40+) I’m still amazed at the new things I learn and realize. The great thing about gardening is that you can start over each Spring with that new knowledge from those mistakes or (maybe we should call them learning experiences)! I look forward to the next episode!
And that is one of the main things we love about gardening. We are such optimists.
We all feel so silly when we make rookie mistakes, but we all make em! It is somehow comforting to know you struggle too. The main thing is that we all think it is definitely worth the daily struggle. Never give up…Never surrender! 🙂
Hey, Joe, I’ve done every mistake you have mentioned. I grow organically, and have two 55 gallon barrels of red worms working away to produce incredible fertilizer the natural way. Now for my huge mistake. I eat a lot of peanuts in the shell, and a lot of sunflower seeds as well. I collect both types of shells and I used them around my tomato plants. The plants did very poorly. I couldn’t figure out why, until my clever younger brother Bob, also an organic gardener, informed me that salt is a natural herbicide. The salt from the salted peanut and sunflower seed shells was leaching into the soil and wreaking havoc on my plants. Ouch.
Not to mention the soil Richard! Lesson learned and a great one to share with others here. Thank you!
Poor vacation planning doomed my tomatoes. When we left, they were just starting to turn a pinkish color. 1 & 1/2 weeks later, half my crop (30 plants) was a rotted mess. What a waste……
Ouch Bill. That hurts to read. I’m sure you will never leave for that much time again without considering this. I hope your neighbors didn’t find out about the missed opportunity!
My biggest mistake was when we bought our house, I put the entire back yard into garden. Working in the city full-time, I soon realized I had over estimated my own abilities! So many plants! And weeds! (which grew out of the “Farm field” top-soil I had delivered for my garden. (I didn’t think to compost it for a year, or let it lay fallow and cultivate to kill weeds, I was just GUNG HO to get planting!) I was over-whelmed by my garden! The next year, I know I couldn’t allow the disaster to happen another year. So I had the majority of the top-soil scraped up onto a pile where it remained for several years, till I could decide what to do with it. I finally chose to make a raised garden out of the heap by using rounded timbers. Great idea and didn’t have to haul-in all the dirt to fill it. Just built the walls around the pile of dirt, and shoved it all flat. It measures 11 feet by 11 feet. Not huge, but not too small. Only two of us, so it produces enough.. So, things are more under control now, except, I, too, have a bad habit of planting too many seeds in each row! I am always expecting to lose more plants than I do, and thinking I’ll thin as I harvest. Oy Vey! My mother had a 2 acre garden, and sold some excess potatoes to the locals, and she had 12 children, all healthy and strong, raised on wonderful ‘naturally organic’ vegetables. So, I’m still affected by the ‘Pioneer Mentality’ my parents raised us on.
I love your honesty, and by being so, you have helped us all incredibly, more than you could know. I had never even considered farm produced compost as being potentially disasterous. You have helped us all to learn by it. Thank you!
This is a huge one Elizabeth. Our exuberance for gardening, especially in spring, can lead to burnout by June. In spite of how often I write and speak on this subject, taking my own advice is a challenge every year. I think we can all relate to your story. Thanks for sharing (and your kind words).
Hey Joe,
I wouldn’t feel too bad about the first one – it really wouldn’t have crossed my mind without you mentioning it on one of your episodes – especially persisting after it gets digested by the cow… The second fault, I’m always guilty of. I think it’s because I read the square foot gardening book, and I try to cram everything in a small space even though I have a 1/4 acre garden. I’m especially prone to planting tomatoes too close together because I like to try all the different varieties and get a lot of them, but this always bites me because I end up getting blight and I lose 70% of the crop. This year I plan on more spacing and pruning to see if that helps – if I can resist the ‘fit them all in there’ temptation. As for your last lesson, can you put up fencing to keep them out?
I may be opening a can of worms here but I’ve often wondered if the SF gardening method is really the right message to send gardeners. Especially new ones. I don’t deny it’s huge success and Mel’s thoughtful details in guiding gardeners to maximum production from minimal space. But, in the process, it’s promoting an environment that is counter to optimal growth conditions and pest and disease prevention. For a new gardener especially, that can ultimately lead to discouraging results in my opinion. Unfortunately, I’m afraid the situation is exacerbated when the gardener tires to rectify the problem with lots of chemicals.
To me, the moral of the story is less is more.
Love that you choose to share your mistakes regardless of others opinions on how it might make you look. Honestly it makes you look human like everyone else and that is honorable. Thanks and I love your show!
I have made quite a few mistakes, but the one that bothers me the most is this one. My biggest mistake was about 8 years ago and I just realized it last year that all those years were wasted. We live in an area of many, many pine and oak trees. We cleared what we wanted and started building raised beds. After we built them we painted them a beautiful bordeaux red. Then they were ready to start. We recycled the plastic bags that we bought the top soil in by laying them across the bottoms of each bed and filled them with the top soil, mixed it with black cow and peat moss and some compost. Then planted. Everything was good for quite a few years. Then, the tree roots from far away started coming up from underground and after a couple of years of that they are uncontrollable now. So, now we do the raised beds but we build them off the ground. There is about 12″ now between the ground and where the bottom of the beds start. We still have 4 more to go to get back to where we began. This is a more expensive way to go, but I won’t make the same mistake twice. The good thing about these being higher is that I don’t have to bend down anymore, but the work involved to rebuild everything and get it back to where it was will take time.
Yes! I have the same problem, will try something else, not sure what it will be?
2014 was my first year to build a raised garden in the back yard. I planted way too many zucchini and couldn’t give them away. In 2015 I want to try new vegetables like kale and corn.
I love your show and have learned so much. Keep em’ coming!
Ah, the classic zucchini mistake. Take comfort in knowing Carol that we have all made this one! Fortunately, it’s a one-time-only lesson that you’ll never forget. And the price of that lesson was next to nothing.
I loved this blog- I too made the same mistake of planting too closely,not weeding enough and planting 100 cherry tomato plants that turned into agonizing back breaking work. I also found myself with all sorts of tomatoes ripening at different times so it was a waiting game to gather enough to process before the first batch went bad.
I could have used a dog to chase away all the animals that attacked my crops- even with an electric fence.
I also waited too late. I counted on being able to get the same leeks and heirloom tomato seedlings that I did the year before. The nursery promised me for 3 weeks that they were coming in and they never did. My biggest lesson is to source out and secure the plants early. Or get seeds and do it myself! Great Blog – Thank you
This is an important point Elizabeth. Sourcing plants early and from a reliable supplier is huge. Otherwise, you’re at the mercy of what’s available at the store. I’m rarely satisfied with that. Which leads me to your point about seeds. If you have the time and patience, this is the BEST way to really get what you want, at a fraction of the price. When I have to supplement my garden beds with store bought seedlings, I cringe every time. It’s never what I really wanted, plus the price these days is very high compared to the small price for a pack of seeds. I recognize there’s a convenience premium there, plus the cost of getting seedlings to that point from the growers standpoint.
But being a gardener that loves to start plants by direct sowing, I only have myself to blame when I have to settle while paying the price to do so. Thanks for this.
Thanks Joe for all the information you share. I love watching your show and record them so I can rewatch when I get a chance. I always learn something.
Last year in my enthusiasm to put in a bigger garden I started some plants too soon and they didn’t grow well. We have very dry hot weather with lots of drying winds after the last frosts in mid May and then the monsoons come the first week of July. I planted seedlings in early May. This year I will start my seedlings in June and add wind protection and hand water until the monsoons.
SueC
Thank you for your honesty and for inviting us to be honest as well! It’s hard to admit that I don’t know much about gardening, but until last summer I had a decent harvest. Then, because we were not able to get the garden plowed as we had before, I decided to follow the advice I had read in another publication and just plant directly into the uncultivated soil. Absolutely no seeds germinated and plants didn’t grow. So, the only harvest I had was herbs, beans and cucumbers that I had planted in raised beds. Obviously, I did something wrong. I’ll never try that again. What a waste of money!
I think it’s all about the soil Kathy. If you only focused on one thing, I think it should be building healthy soil. If you want to learn more, I’ve written a lot on this subject on the website. Just type “soil” or “healthy soil” or “compost” into the search bar and stand back. Thanks for writing.
I’m still fairly new to gardening (four years) but this year I made my biggest mistake and lost a whole crop of potatoes. It was heart breaking to turn over potato after potato and see them destroyed by scabs. After researching how and why potatoes get scabs I realized quickly the error of my ways! Crop rotation stands out as my biggest failure. I read about it every year and continue to plant in the same place! Why? I don’t know? I planted my potatoes for three years in the same place and each year my crop got worse than the prior year (should have picked up on the signs). I also did not plant a cover crop or mulch my raised bed to put nutrients back into the soil so the bad stuff in the soil just keeps getting worse every year. I’m studying hard on organic gardening this year in an efforts to understand how to properly balance everything in my garden and how to naturally enhance the soil and get rid of pests. I always try to go back and review my gardening year and assess my failures. Still hurts when I look back on my potatoes that I lost this year but I definitely have learned a great lesson in gardening so it was not all a loss Thanks for sharing this post and for being honest. It was encouraging to me.
We’re all creatures of habit Brian. It def. gets in the way sometimes in our gardening progress. But as you said, reviewing your successes and failures will def. make the mistakes worth it going forward. Nothing ventured, nothing gained is so true with gardening.
Last year I grew quinoa. I didn’t read the directions thorougly enought and planted too closed toether. The plants grew to over 6 feet tall and had a million seeds. In researching further I found out that one seed head could seed 1/4 acre. I just hope I harvesting quickly and carefully enough that my entire 1000 foot garden won’t be ALL quinoa next year.
Plus the process of harvesting and cleaning the seeds for cooking is quite time consuming. No wonder it is so expensive in the grocery store!
The “not planting” thing has been my bugaboo for many seasons. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve planted a LOT, but not nearly enough, or as soon as I should have, whether it be trees, or shrubs, or perennials, or even veggies. Like many people, I keep thinking that in time a “master plan” will become obvious, making everything just fall into place in a magical, sensible order. Ha Ha! What I’m finally learning is that there is no perfect, pre-ordained plan, and I need to JUST DO IT! And the more I realize that perfection can be a crippling illusion, I’m also learning to revel in the imperfect … and finding more often than not that it’s usually good enough! : )
Touche’ Colleen. Perfectionism is a worthless pursuit. I’m guilty of it but slowly maturing in this department. And you know what? I’m a much happier gardener because of it. “Revel in the imperfect”…love that!
Thank you for your honesty Joe, it really is the best policy. I would venture a guess that humbling yourself may be part of what has allowed you to become an expert? I’m guilty of # 2 and 3, but instead of goats it’s deer. I also tend to buy too many seeds, i guess it’s the childlike exuberance that gardening brings out in me. This year my big mistake was while attempting to graft tomatoes for the first time (moderate success) i neglected my other tomato seedling, which resulted in stunted plants. Thanks for everything Joe.
Paul,
When you buy too many seeds or decide you don’t want to grow the specific plant again next year, consider donating your seeds to your local Master Gardener extention. Someone else will likely want to give it a try.
Thanks Paul. And I must say, I’m very impressed that you attempted to graft tomatoes last year. That is something I have yet to try. Any success at all here in your fist time attempt is a victory in my opinion. Taking what you learned and progressing with it is what it’s all about.
My biggest blunder ever…so big I will lose 1/2 of my garden space this year.
I routinely pick up bags of leaves in the neighboring town. These are used to mulch and compost.
I absent-mindedly picked up a bag with nut grass some one had painstakingly removed from their flower bed/garden and used it as mulch for my vegetable garden. I compounded the mistake by mulching the area with newspapers and then oak leaves (thinking that process would kill the nut grass or slow it down). Today’s newspapers (not like yesteryears) are biodegradable. The first hugh rain storm we had then disintegrated and turned the newspapers to nutritious compost fertilizing, along with the oak leaves , the nut grass. As a result I had the healthiest looking nut grass I have ever seen. Now with triple the nut grass I must condemn that portion of my vegetable garden and turn it back in lawn.
In the 1970’s and early 1980’s I gardened in the area of far North Texas (south of the Lake Texoma, Okla border) in soil that was the HARD terra cotta colored clay “soil.” I would get oak leaves –hundreds of bags –from the neighbors and turn them into the soil in the fall and compost the others. Also used them to mulch the plants for the growing season to keep the soil from baking in the heat. In the Red River bottom land the farmers grew peanuts. I could buy bags of ground up peanut shells by the pound and the price was about 7 cents a pound ( that is what my memory says!) My husband would also till this into the soil and we would also use it for mulch. About 10 years ago we went back to visit and I wanted to go get some peanuts to take home for snacks and cooking. My family told me that it had been closed down for years because the soil was so contaminated from the chemicals used in production that it was too toxic for food. They were now growing grass turf for lawns. I can’t tell you how much of the peanuts products we consumed over the years. I think of it when I think “peanut brittle.” We thought we were organic gardening then. We all are healthy now. Thanks to the Great Physician….
Sorry that happened. I have brought peoples leaves home along with their household trash. Geez!Would it be possible to rake the leaves up then use a flat blade shovel and scoop up the top few inches of soil and HOPEFULLY remove a lot of the nut grass. If the seed is deeper it will be harder to get. I have removed nut grass with garden hose and a pressure nozzle, a shovel and hand trowel. Flood the soil in very small areas and pull it up. I have been able to get it better under better control over time but you may never eliminate it. I am sure you know that the runners run to the side and not very deep usually. Also I remove extra soil. I have used this method with the hose on high and dug into the ground and got bermuda roots as deep as 1 ft. Just remember PATIENCE! PS—I was younger then!
I’ll stagger my lettuce planting this year for spring and fall. I also try to use a more serendipitous approach to garden design and just get started instead of waiting for the “grand plan” to manifest in my head, down to all the nitty gritty details.
Water woes by not harvesting enough rain water. Did not tie a 250 gallon container into my eaves troughs and drought the latter part of the growing season was greater than my existing 30 gallon barrel could ever keep up with. My groundwater is high in salt so rain water is my go to.
My biggest mistake of 2014 (and many years before that and probably this year too!) was being sooo excited about the upcoming growing season that I seed and transplant outdoors before that last late frost. And no matter how many sheets of plastic, milk bottle ‘hot houses’, or layers of straw a replanting is inevitable.
Yes! This is such a role of the dice George, but so many of us do it. What I don’t like is when garden centers sell tender plants WELL ahead of even the marginally safe zone. But I think it’s fun to try and get a jump on the season. Sometimes you win though so I always keep on trying, in spite of those years Mother Nature humbles me.
I got the wrong spray bottle. Thinking I had bug killer I had weed killer. Guest what happen?
I am new to South Carolina & it has been years since I have had room for a garden. But now I have 2 new raised, tiered beds to install. I would like to know what is the best position , ie: facing North, South, etc., for my beds?
Thank you,
Sandra
Hi Sandra. It really doesn’t make much difference but given the choice, I think beds aligned east to west take it the max. amount of sun. But what really matters is that you make sure the tallest plants in your beds and garden are on the north or west side of the medium plants. Then the shortest plants are on the south or east side of the rest. That way, they’ll all get the most sun exposure possible.
Thank you for your honesty – especially about the Not starting soon enough. It helps make gardening less intimidating, reminding us that trials and errors are a part of learning. My biggest mistake is not starting my cold frame winter garden soon enough. Instead of starting in late Septemberr here in WI, I finally sowed seeds in early November. Hence, not enough sunlight and warmth to encourage greens to grow. I am now looking forward to early Spring greens. 🙂
My biggest mistake – letting the onions go to seed. Every seed germinated and now I have a lawn of onions. I breaks my heart to dig them up and there are too many for scallions.
My biggest garden mistake would be not making my perennial bed a raised bed. Now I have too many plants to move. My back knows it,too.
Thanks. Tomatoes should be how far apart?
It depends on the variety ER. Some smaller types are bred for stay small and compact. Others, like the indeterminate heirloom varieties I love to grow can use four feet or more between them. Although they can be contained by round fencing supports to plant them closer together, I believe they always to better when given more room for sunlight and air circulation.
last years arctic cold and polar vortex made me long for my garden more than ever. So I made the mistake of trying to start my tomatoes in the house in January. Last year. Although it worked well for my peppers to do so….my tomato plants were so huge that they began wrapping themselves around the grow lights. When I pulled trays out they would be hanging by the light, others would fall over and damage the stem. I couldn’t move the lights up further. Couldn’t move them in and out to harden them off. I Broke nearly half of what I grew trying to move them. I had 166 tomato plants in my indoor grow space and although I gave away some…. I ended up with 66. They grew 10 feet tall and out produced all my friends.. They were earlier to produce by 2 weeks and outlasted my firends by 2-3 weeks. But it was sad to loose so many to breakage and transplant shock. I have started my peppers. They were healthy, hearty productive . Holding off on the tomatoes. Lessen learned.
OMG. Yes, I know it is sad to lose even a single seedling. Funny how that is, right? But still, just imagine if you had all of those actually make it to planting. Great story!
Letting the weeds get too far ahead and not staking the tomatoes.