Usually I learn my gardening mistakes, or I should say take note of them, in the fall while cleaning the garden up for winter. I didn't get to do that this fall. I didn't have a chance, and was under doctors orders to not exert. Then the holidays came and my little Etsy store was going so fast I could barely keep up (thank you very much!).
So the holiday season is behind us, Etsy is somewhat caught up, and the weather is glorious right now! Enjoy it while I can! In addition, our absentee land owner next door is finally clearing out the fence line adjacent to our property. This means we can clear ours out now. We have a landscaper coming by to do the bulk of the work. The job is just too big for a weekend foray. I say all of this to say, spring is in the air and now I am getting a chance to clean up, and evaluate last years success and failures; mostly failures.
Failure #1- Wood chips. I don't think wood chips make a great mulch. Don't get me wrong, they are great for in between rows of raised beds. I know that NOW. They aren't great directly on the bed. It doesn't matter if they're aged or not. My plants suffered last year, and I believe the main reason was wood chips. Now if you compost the wood chips into the nice crumble compost, that is another story. So From now on, wood chips will keep their place in between the raised beds.
Failure #2- My rabbit proof "Fence". Ha! I put this PVC netting around my garden in the hopes of keeping the cute little buggers away. Didn't work. I buried it and everything, but they still got in. It slowed them down a bit getting out, but they still got in. Another draw back is it made it harder to have access to opposite sides of certain raised beds. This allowed weeds to take over and made it difficult to get to the produce. The weeds took over up to the edge of the netting on the outside of the garden and made it hard to get them out. The roots, stems, etc wrapped their self through the netting, and it was a mess. Well that is all down now. I'm not planning on growing anything the rabbits will be interested in this spring; carrots, broccoli, cabbage, etc. If I do, I'll put a hoop house over it to protect from varmints.
Failure #3- Corn! I planted my corn too close and too much. I affected my yield big time. Plus I had all of my tall plants at one end of the garden, which made it like the amazon trying to get thru to pick or do other garden maintenance. I'm not planting corn this year anyway, but when I do, the beds will be staggered.
Failure #4- Seed catalogs!- These got the best of us as we went nuts buying seeds galore. We were going to try this, and this, and this. What happened was I didn't have room in my garden for all this wonderfulness, and ended up without enough of what I really needed in order to preserve for winter use.
Failure #5 Wooden seed starter boxes!- UGH! Got this brilliant idea from a Youtube video I was watching. It goes without saying that if wood ships will steal nitrogen from the soil, then logic would say, so would wooden seed boxes? I mean that sounds right. Well it sounds right today, but back then I was all on board with trying it. Yea, Back to Terra Cotta pots or seed pots.
Gardening is a series of successes and failures. If you try something and it fails, well you know not to try it that way again. Let me tell you though; if you have something that works well, don't try anything else. Use what works for you. If you're struggling with something, by all means try what you can, but don't mess with perfection.
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