This was only my second year gardening, and first year with my own yard 😤 Everything is in containers. I struggled a lot with figuring out a good place to put containers that got enough sunlight. I was trying to avoid the front yard because I was worried about car exhaust and grossness getting onto veggies, but when I finally caved and moved everything to the front it started growing much much better. Lots of things also got chomped by deer and groundhogs in the backyard. I had hoped that big containers would keep the groundhogs out but I caught one climbing up onto the top and eating all the seedlings. Lots of failures, lots of dead plants. I tried to plant some native flowers in the backyard hoping to get them to spread to the empty lot behind us, but no success. A lot of seeds got eaten by birds.
I had better luck with both veggie and flower starts that I bought from the local farmer’s market. I was SO CLOSE to getting sunflowers, the flower heads were coming out but then we had a big windy thunderstorm that knocked them over and they got all crispy after :( My only harvest this year are a couple of jalapeno peppers. I didn’t start anything indoors this year, but I definitely see the value in it now and I’m hoping to get a rack with grow lights set up over the winter.
What about you guys??
I just picked up hydroponic gardening within the last year and I’m in love! I live in a desert climate so gardening has always been kinda off my radar because of the heat. The only plants I generally want in my yard are native plants and wildflowers that don’t need my help and support the local ecosystem. I started hydroponically with lettuce and herbs which were shockingly easy and did very well. I recently branched off to buying a bigger grow light and I’ve got my first baby tomatoes coming in just this week! I also had to learn about stratification but I figured it out and my strawberries/catnip are turning into little bushes! It’s all actually SO easy. No bugs, no smelly fertilizers, no bad weather, no desperately trying to shade plants from the sun, and no animals messing with my garden.
I’ve always joked that plants come to my house to die but now I have a whole farm in the spare bedroom and it barely needs me to do anything other than monitor the nutrient water levels and check the PH occasionally. I’ve also started some houseplants in their own jars and I only have to refill their nutrient water like once a week if that.
Overall I think the biggest surprise to me is how much food I’ve wasted in my life. So many veggies from the grocery store can be plopped in a jar with some nutrient water (or even just water) and then keep growing/producing or at the very least stay fresh much longer. Green onions especially just keep growing back.
Also, unless it’s heirloom planting most grocery tomatoes will result in a sad vine that does everything it can to die and will never produce a single tomato lol. Then you’ll end up feeling bad for it because it’s not the tomato plant’s fault so you’ll just keep the stupid thing alive out of weird misplaced guilt. That last one might just be me though…