Every year I try to include new things that I haven’t tried before into my gardens, while keeping my mainstays on board as well. When it comes to vegetable and herb gardening, I am mostly self-taught. I didn’t grow up with a gardening family, and even though I’ve worked in greenhouses, growing plants in the soil outside your door is far different than keeping potted plants in a greenhouse alive. So, sometimes gardening lessons take years to learn.
Many of us will have to start again. Some of us will throw our hands up and say “never again.” Talk is cheap, you never-againers. My motto this year has been something along the lines of Plants are a disease, without any cure. Once you have the gardening bug, it’s there to stay.
Removing nasty old habits, emotional clutter, harmful relationships, and, in my case, negative and deprecating thought patterns in favor of cultivating new, healthy growth is a continual practice. Sometimes its hard..really hard…but that’s part of the human experience.
One of my first cooking experiences involved a tortilla, ramen noodles, shredded cheese, and a microwave. That is cooking failure. I may not be the best home cook in the world, but I’m worlds away from being the “cook” I was 15 years ago. My current garden is like that…years of making botanical mistakes to learn from, in order to have something I can be proud of. Is it the best garden ever? Far from it, but for me, it’s constantly evolving, getting better, and is a place I find endlessly fascinating.
