Gardening – Diversify Your Garden
The weather in my part of the universe last year was…strange. And the vegetables I expected to do well didn’t. The vegetables I often planted for fun, however, did well.
I was happy that I planted a wide variety of vegetables.
The weather in 2026, I suspect, will be as strange. But likely in a different way.
So a big focus of my garden plans this year is diversity. I will plant just about everything and hopefully something does well.
(smiles)
Gardening is an adventure. Be adventurous in your plant selection!
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Gardening Is An Experiment
A friend was telling me she did the exact same thing in 2025 as she did in 2024 with her garden and her results were completely different.
That’s because there are a gazillion variables with the gardening experiment and many of them (like weather, first frost dates, insects, etc) we have very little control over.
And gardening IS an experiment.
Gardeners try new things all the time. Some of these things work. Some of these things don’t.
I tried to grow blueberries from seeds this year. None of my three attempts were successful. I will likely try again in 2026 using different techniques.
Because it is all a big experiment. And that’s part of the fun.
Have fun with it, my friends!
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2025 Gardening Lessons – Plant A Wide Variety
The weather during our 2025 gardening season was…wild.
It was scorching hot one day and near frost cold the next day. It rained hard for a day. Then there was drought for a month. Insects, both beneficial and harmful, were plentiful.
The plants I expect to do well in our garden (like tomatoes) didn’t. The plants that did well (like parsley) surprised me.
I think, with our changing climate, this unpredictability will become…predictable.
And the only way I think to combat this, while gardening outside, is to plant a variety of crops and hope some do well.
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Gardening Failures Are To Be Expected
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)
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