This will be my second gardening year. I'm still the first to admit I know nothing about it, and this will be the case for many, many more years, I'm sure. However, last year I knew even less, and it still worked better than anyone could have expected (left to right: tomatoes, peppers, mustard greens)...
Gardening seems like a never ending learning curve. You never "know everything", and that's great. From my first year of gardening, I learnt that you can plant a lot of the things you buy in a grocery store (like pepper seeds and dill, cilantro, and mustard seeds from the spice aisle).
This second year of my gardening experience has already seen its first errors. I used the rolls from toilet paper rolls as seed starting containers. The idea is actually really good - it lets you replant the starter into the garden without disturbing its roots. In my case, two things happened - 1) I overcrowded the rolls and they got very fungus-y, and 2) I made no bottoms to the rolls I was using (as opposed to this), and the roots simply went on a little tour of their immediate environment. So while the pea starter was about 2 inches tall and the toilet paper roll was about 3 inches tall, the trailing roots hanging outside of the roll were about 8'' long. That's why the peas got kicked outside and are now in the garden, in a makeshift greenhouse...
What did I learn from this? That if you use paper-based starting containers, you don't overcrowd them, and that starting containers need bottoms. Will I use rolls again next year? You bet. I like that it's reusing basically garbage, I much prefer cardboard to the plastic (or peat) seed pots, and I do like the idea of not disturbing the roots.
Another thing that I learnt this year (already, and it's only April!) is that given 10 mins of Internet research, some imagination, and a bit of luck, we're actually pretty good and making stuff ourselves and for free. It may not be a thing of beauty, but there's a chance that it'll actually work... Here's our makeshift tepee for things like peas and cucumbers. Made with sticks (picked up for free) and leftovers of crocheting twine I bought 3 years ago for a macrame project.
And it already has its first inhabitants (cue the extra-rooty peas from 2 paragraphs ago). Look at the cute little things!
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