I mess up. A lot.
Like in any given day I have probably
broken a heel, sat in chalk, and if it's a special day where I need to meet
with someone very important I have most likely worn a white dress and spilled
coffee down my front. I definitely walked across your freshly painted floor and
brushed against the white board with my sleeve messing not only myself but
everything you had written. My hair looks crazy because I probably ran to get
here because I almost certainly realized too late that I was late.
But the worst is the strawberry fiasco.
Attempt #1: strawberry pot. Has lots of
little pods on the outside of the pot. This is like a Spanish pottery staple so
this must be a thing. Hmm. Seems like not much soil for all these plants to
share. Also, what are spindly long things running out the sides? No berries
anymore. Why? Martha Stewart did this exact thing on show. Maybe need fancier
strawberry pot. Possibly reclaimed. Depending on what that should turn out to
mean.
Spindly things. |
Attempt #3: raised beds. AND spindly things running over sides are called runners! Am now strawberry expert. Carefully plant raised bed with strawberries and tomato plants, just fudging the recommended spacing directions by a few inches. Sure it's fine. Runners will make new strawberry plants. For free! Hmm. Strawberries are not producing though. Dammit. Runners are running.
Attempt #4: raised beds sans tomatoes.
Apparently...tomatoes and strawberries kill each other. Like to the point that
you can't plant strawberries in soil where tomatoes have been for THREE. YEARS.
Okay. New acidic soil that berries will love. Acidic fertilizer. Organic
compost. Bird netting. Set up for some freaking SUCCESS, dammit.
Then came outside to see my terrier
delicately pick a single strawberry through the bird netting, lift it over the
bed side and carefully chew it through the netting. Through. The netting.
Dammit.
Oh did I mention the slugs found the beds
this year?
I mess up. A lot.
I think though, we make the assumption
that farming or gardening is easy. Seeds, water, soil, sunlight. Even an idiot
should be able to make that work. For gods sake if a FARMER can figure it
out...!
My husband, a computer engineer who writes
the software that makes planes fly themselves, was trying to install a drip irrigation
system for my raised beds. He came in from the yard soaked from shirt to shorts
and mad as, if you'll excuse the expression, a wet hen. "How can it be
this hard? It is impossible that it is this hard and farmers do this. They wear
overalls! They poke seeds in holes! They don’t even read!"
The irrigation system is still sitting out
there on the lawn.
So, we mess up.
Failure in the garden is just going to
happen. The one thing I learned (once I finally stopped being lazy and actually
researching what I was doing) was the one thing I should have realized
intrinsically--nature is complex. There are more variables in play than I will
absolutely be able to control or even always anticipate (like where do the
squash beetles come from if there are no other squash around? How did they find
me? Why do they eat my squash?! Why?! Why?!) and that's just life. I can't take
it personally no matter how the perfectionist in me screams "you idiot you
have a master’s degree! You can't best a packet of seeds and some dirt? You're
literally not as smart as the DIRT?!"
Nope. I still have a ton to learn. But I'm proud to say I have blueberry bushes producing a good quarter cup of berries every morning; snap pea pods on my carelessly sprouted seedlings; and even my poor strawberries, when you cut out the slug bites, are absolutely delicious. I'll keep trying to outwit the dirt. I haven't broken a heel farming so far.
Nope. I still have a ton to learn. But I'm proud to say I have blueberry bushes producing a good quarter cup of berries every morning; snap pea pods on my carelessly sprouted seedlings; and even my poor strawberries, when you cut out the slug bites, are absolutely delicious. I'll keep trying to outwit the dirt. I haven't broken a heel farming so far.
Lol loved it.keep going I wish I had a green thumb I can't grow anything.
ReplyDeleteLol loved it.keep going I wish I had a green thumb I can't grow anything.
ReplyDeleteI suck at gardening and I used to kill everything. I'm still jealous of my neighbors who scoff at urban farming yet have an amazing huge eggplant that produces like crazy. I think everybody starts out struggling (and I continue to!) because it's way harder than we give farmers credit for. Green beans were pretty easy and successful for me, out of all my early failures, and I've really like tomatillos this year, they grow like crazy and don't seem to attract pests or diseases. Maybe a good jumping off point!
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