Growing a garden is a lot like being in a relationship. In fact, it is a relationship. You spend time getting to know your plants and what they like. You get to understand their idiosyncrasies – what makes them tick – or not. You get to know the natural conditions around your plants, such as sun, shade, soil, moisture, and pests, and how these conditions affect your plants.
Some things you can control, like the plants you choose, soil amendments, and pests. Other things, like the weather and climate, you cannot control. You learn to work around the challenges, if you can. Some plants thrive and some plants fail. When conditions are right, you are rewarded with an abundant harvest.
Sometimes – especially when we’re fledgling gardeners – we make mistakes, we misread the conditions, we take on more than we can manage, or we just have some bad luck, and we’re met with disappointment. Plants die or don’t produce.
“We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope.” ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.
The journey from seed to fruit can be a long one, but when a plant produces a harvest, it’s so darn exciting and satisfying. For gardeners, there is always disappointment, but there’s always another day to grow. Just as the plants you nurture grow, you grow as a gardener and also as a human being.
How do you cope with disappointment?
When someone you love does something you don’t like, you’re disappointed with them, but you still love them. Sometimes you question yourself, saying, “What did I do wrong?” You ask yourself the same question when your plants fail. You wonder what you could have done better and if you should just stop trying. Afterall, gardening is a lot of work and a big expense. Is it really worth it?
To deal with disappointment, a first step is to understand why you’re disappointed. Were you looking forward to the harvest, the delicious food you expected to have produced? Were you hoping to give some of your produce to friends and neighbors? Did you spend a lot of money on your garden, and you think you’ve wasted your money? Are you competing with other gardeners, and you’re embarrassed that they’ll see your failures, that they’ll judge you? Is it all of the above?
I have a little porch garden, and it’s had a rough summer. The plants have struggled in the heat. The irony is, they also struggle to get enough sun in my location.
This is the first season that I’ve tried to grow veggies at my rental property. I’ll admit that for the most part, I’ve only grown flowers, herbs, and ornamental plants in the past. This is the first time I’ve tried to grow a full-fledged vegetable garden.
My garden plot is not an ideal situation. It’s a container garden on the open-air covered porch of my rental apartment, on the west side of my building. Ideally, the plants should get morning sun, but they only get direct sun starting in the mid-afternoon. By then, the sun is fierce in the summer.
I bit the bullet and did it anyway.
I live in the San Fernando Valley, and it gets quite hot here – a dry heat in desert-like conditions. We’ve had mostly 90s and triple digits in July and August, with one day recently that reached 109. Many of my plants really suffered. Some of my bean plants have died, and some, like my cucumbers, are just barely hanging on.
I’ve learned to follow the movement of the sun all day. I check soil moisture periodically throughout the day, and I have cheese cloth I use to shade some of my plants from the direct sun. It has helped. But when the temperatures get into the triple digits, it’s just a band-aid solution.
One of my bush beans had three beans on it, not quite mature yet. Two of them shriveled up. I picked the one that was left. I guess I’ll put that in a salad. And yet, as you can see from the featured photo in this post, although the leaves are burnt and dry, the plant is still producing blossoms; it’s hanging in there. I guess I should, too.
Adjust your expectations
Plants are able to adjust, to a certain degree, and so must we as gardeners. My landlord made me move my tomato plants from the sunny spot on my steps up to my porch, where it’s less sunny. As you know, tomatoes require lots of direct sun. The miracle of life is that my tomatoes reached up and found the sun. Now, they’re producing.
That kind of success against all odds doesn’t always happen, so we have to learn lessons from our mistakes and let go of anything we have no control over, just like we must do in the “non-gardening” world. When we meet disappointment and feel knocked down, we get up again. In the garden, we can adjust our mistakes and replant. We can also shift and try something different. We can choose plants that are better suited to the conditions. That’s a matter of trial and error, so we need to have some patience and take enjoyment in the learning process.
Early in the season when it was cooler, I had great success with lettuces, chard, beets, cilantro, and other herbs. I even managed to harvest a couple of zucchini and yellow summer squash. But then, they dried up. Next season will be better for my squash crop. I’ve learned what is possible in my space and can adjust to get a bigger harvest.
“When you find your path, you must not be afraid. You need to have sufficient courage to make mistakes. Disappointment, defeat, and despair are the tools God uses to show us the way.” ~ Paulo Coelho
Comparing yourself to others
Stop comparing! It’s easy to compare our gardens to other gardens we see. When I scroll through my Instagram account, I see gorgeous displays of fruits and vegetables, many of them grown in containers or urban settings. They make me feel inadequate. Then I remember that each one of us has a unique path to follow with a different set of challenges. My garden will thrive eventually. It’s a matter of time (and labor and patience and…).
If you had a candid conversation with these successful gardeners, you’d probably learn that they had many failures when they started out and still have failures here and there. Remember, they only post their successes. You don’t know what happened behind the scenes.
Let it go
When you meet failure in the garden, pat yourself on the back and give yourself credit that you tried. Did you expect to be perfect? Really? You’re human. Don’t punish yourself or feel guilty. You can’t control everything. There’s always another lesson to learn and another season for growing, so let go of the disappointment and get ready to start again.
Learn from your mistakes and learn from other gardeners. Don’t let pride keep you from being a better gardener. It’s helpful to admit to yourself and others that you don’t know everything.
We all want to appear to be experts and be able show off what we’ve done. We don’t need to do that. Besides, most gardeners are very happy to give advice. It makes them feel good. Let them advise you, and you can reap the benefits. Along with some beautiful produce, you can build a beautiful community of gardeners, all helping each other out. Someday, you’ll have expertise, too, and you can offer help.
Meditate
Spend some quiet time in your garden to nurture your inner world. Whether you’re watering, weeding, planting, or just sitting, stay in the moment with your plants. Meditate and allow some space to open up. It’s a healthy way to let your feelings of disappointment surface without judgment, to let them pass from your mind and understand that any perceived failures are on your path for a reason. They’re part of your evolution as a gardener, as a human being, and as a soul having a human experience on this Earth. Let your disappointment go and make space for renewed hope.
A new season and a new crop
A change of seasons can bring disappointment to the forefront. It reminds us of all that we have not accomplished. And yet, a change of seasons can also bring new hope. It’s a chance to shift into another mode of thinking about crops you can grow in this new season, especially in the change from summer to autumn.
I’m fortunate to live in southern California where we have a long growing season. The summers are very hot and dry, and that’s a big challenge for those of us with container gardens. But there’s always the fall crop. When the weather turns cooler, we can start anew and grow again. I’ve made my list of seeds to plant and am waiting for the weather to cool a bit. Triple digits are predicted for the first week in September, but the weather should settle down after that.
Depending on where you live, you can grow an autumn crop of summer squash, pumpkins, chard and other greens, a variety of lettuces, beets, carrots, spinach, radishes, turnips, onions, garlic, cabbage, broccoli, brussels sprouts, bok choi, sugar peas, and bush beans.
Getting up again counts
We keep trying. Like my bush bean plant whose leaves are burned, yet it still produces flowers, we continue on. When you count your failures, be sure to count your blessings, too. Be grateful for every little harvest. Be grateful for the miracle of life in yourself and in the plants you nurture. We’re here on this earth to help each other – plants and humans. It’s a symbiotic relationship in the Divine community of life.
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