We watch a gardening video. We duplicate the steps exactly.
The seeds don’t germinate. Or they germinate and days later, the plants die. Or the plants die for some other reason.
What did we do wrong?
It is likely nothing we did.
We will never have the exact same garden as the person on the video.
Because every piece of land, every bit of soil is unique.
The Dear Wonderful Hubby and I have different soil in the back yard than we do in the front yard. Stars. We have different soil in the north side of our tiny back yard than we have in the south side of the same back yard!
One of the many reasons it is different is because we have a giant horse chestnut tree that has dropped its leaves on the north side for the last twenty or more years. And the north side gets more sun. And it is a bit windier on the north side. And…And…And…
All those factors make a difference in growing plants.
Which is one of the reasons why it often takes years to figure out what grows well and how it grows well in our little plots of land.
(And every bag of soil purchased has variability also because it is ‘harvested’ from different land.)
Gardening is trial and error. In the beginning of our gardening journeys, there will likely be more failures than successes. Over time, as we build on our successes, we’ll become experts at growing things in our spaces. And the successes will far outweigh the failures.
WE will become the gardeners other people envy and try to duplicate.
And THEIR gardens will never mirror ours. Because our soil, our land is unique.
(smiles)
