Thanks Lisa.I’m not used to not being good at something...
When I try something new I practice until I’m proficient, or decide it isn’t worth my time. I don’t usually continue to put efforts into failures. So I guess I’m still practicing to become proficient.
My grandpa always had a big garden, and he was only able to grow squash. Big gorgeous plants, and the whole rest of the plot was dead failures. So it runs in the family. Although my grandma said her mama could put a dead stick in the ground and it would take root.
My goodness, you are hard on yourself! You've gotta remember that gardening is not an exact science. You can input the same exact effort, seeds, amendments, even water and have wildly different results from one year to an other. There are the little details which we have no control over: things like weather patterns, extreme insect load one year compared to an other. Weather patterns can even have a crazy effect on disease issues! One year, almost every single tomato crop in the state of Maine was wiped out by late blight. Last year was a bad cucumber year. Many of my friends had the same issue. Couldn't grow any cucumbers. While other crops did great, even crops in the same family, cucumbers simply chose not to grow last summer! Cucumbers are relatively easy to grow, but did poorly for me. Watermelon which is in same family, I've never been able to grow. Yet, last year, I grew my first ripe melons!
