I salute you all gardeners and farmers....I don't know how you do it!
The cats ate the flowers, the birds ate my sprouting sunflower seeds, and my tomatos and cantelopes have yet to even sprout.
On the bright side however, the green beans and peas are coming up as well as my broccoli so hopefully I can keep those alive...I may need to get some plants or new seeds for the tomatos and cantelopes though.
I wish more people would garden. I really have an appreciation for gardeners and especially farmers whose livlihood depends on this stuff. Just getting stuff to sprout seems hard enough and then keeping it alive and fruitful...what a task! I think if more people tried it, they would be more willing to shell out the money for organic after appreciating how much work goes into it. We would probably not be so wasteful either....
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3 comments:
It is definitely frustrating sometimes. I've lost most of last year's fruit, nut, and berry plantings because over the winter mice and rabbits have gnawed the bark and thin branches to bits. Lesson learned.
My strategies are:
1. Don't take failures personally. Plan for and expect quite a few.
2. If something's not working, try something else. I will give a particular plant or seed a couple of chances, but after that I change course.
3. If something is working, do more of it.
4. Try to use nature rather than fighting it. I have too many mice, so I'm planting catnip, and hanging an owl nesting box. I don't have enough pollinators, so I'm making mason bee nesting sites. You get the idea.
Hang in there. Even the most experienced gardeners have things they lose every year. I experiment with different ways of starting seeds, different seeds, different places to start seeds ect... until I find a system that works for me. And I really agree, when you find a crop that works for you, do more of it.
Probably the most important thing for me is to put my seedling where I can see them everyday.
I had the same problem with sunflower seeds. What I learned was this: sprout them in your house. When the sprouts warrent soil, do so. Then keep them in your house until about an inch tall. After that, critters leave them alone.
PS Got here from Gina.
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