Folks, I think it’s official. I don’t think I can garden. At least not traditionally anyway.
I can do tomatoes. Yes, those are thriving like nobody’s business and I can’t wait to start picking for caprese salad lunches and no-cook pasta sauce.
I can do spinach. It’s taken EONS for the seeds to sprout, but I’ve finally got some leaves to add to our weekly salad nights.
But the zucchini? Green beans? Carrots?
Um… I think they’re dead?
Tell me – how exactly do you kill the easy vegetable to grow? And how is it that leaves turn brown and whither when they’re plenty watered and given plenty of sun?
My gardening black thumb is the reason why I regrow so many plants in water on my kitchen table, but I’m not giving up just yet!
As with any life lesson, I’m learning leaps and bounds about gardening – both what TO do, and what NOT to do – and I hope it’s helping you guys along the way… even if the “help” is merely encouragement that gardening isn’t easy and it’s okay if you’re not good at it!!
I’m sharing my gardening tips for people who can’t garden over at The Humbled Homemaker, and it’s just the pick-me-up you might need if your harvest isn’t exactly going as planned. Tip #2 is actually why my tomatoes are still alive, and tip #4 is why I’ll plant them again next year!
You can read my black-thumb gardening tips here, and check out these other posts on gardening too:
- 10 Regrow Plants in Water Alone
- 5 Clever Gardening Hacks
- Composting Basics for Beginners
- Urban Square Foot Gardening
- 7 Things Every First-time Gardener Should Know
- 50 Ways to Fertilize the Garden for Free
- DIY: Raised Garden Bed for Under $15
- 7 Ways to Water the Garden for Free
YES! But I still love it and still do it. I’m not sure carrots, beans, and zucchini ARE the easiest to grow, so never fear! I think it might depend on what climate you’re in. Bugs eat all my beans, carrots don’t do well in our heavy clay, and I don’t know what’s up with my zukes. Find what’s easy for YOU to grow, and grow a lot of it so you have more to spend on what you can’t grow! That’s my take on it 🙂
We had success with tomatoes, pumpkins, green onions, strawberries, and sunflowers. Recently we planted horseradish root, and were amazed . We had no success with cucumbers. We live in California, and water is not plentiful. Thanks for the posts. I am learning a lot.
Cucumbers need moist air or there leaves crisp up and wither. I normally surround them in bubble wrap or similar and throw a little water around the surrounding pebbles and stones so the water evaporates and creates moisture. They don’t like dry heat…. Good luck
I’m a decent gardener and getting better, but certain veggies elude me. I have NEVER been able to grow peppers, and my root veggies always take way longer to grow than they should.
I’ve been gardening my entire life and it’s not easy! I’m a stay at home mom, so gardening is not only a means to save money but also a hobby and stress reliever. It’s a lot of hard work but so rewarding! Some years have higher yields than others. But, whoever told you that growing zucchini is easy is lying! Out of all the veggies in my garden that is the one that always fails me. In SC, we have vine borers that kill my zucchini year af after year. But I keep trying! Don’t give up!
I have no problems growing anything here in sparta, tn. Except tomatoes. ..4 yrs with nothing but bad luck…I grow corn, all types of peppers, broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, beets, carrots okra, watermelon, cantaloupe, cucumbers , zucchini and yellow squash green onions and red and white onions. Love it . .. then I can and freeze everything …but I have to buy those darn tomatoes to make salsas and sauces
I live in hopatcong nj and i grow allot of tomatoes, i have been gardening for years and found that planting tomatoes in pots and up on my deck where i get allot of sun they love sun they do great and i do cherry tomatoes. i dont buy them from anywhere else but godlewski greenhouses farm off of 80 west the prices are great and plants are so healthy made mistake last year buying some flowers from lowes and they didnt thive like the ones from the farm
I am definitely a person who can’t garden, but I would love to learn. It is good to find tips for beginners like me:) Greetings
Hope these help you out Bonnie – from one black thumb to another, happy gardening!
I have always had a ton of slugs in my garden. Not snails, I got rid of those the first year or two, but slugs of all kinds. They kind of give me the creeps, so I’m not into hand picking them. This year, they got to my brocolli and made the leaves look like lace. I don’t use pesticides of any kind and I didn’t want to dust them because I didn’t think I would be able to completely wash it off after harvest. I happened to notice that, although every other plant in the garden had some slug damage, my German Green tomato plant had none…zero.. holes in the leaves and fruit. I figured that the tomato plant must have some kind of natural slug deterent, so I snipped of a branch, made a tea out of it and sprayed it on the brocolli. It’s been weeks and no holrd on the new leaves. Pretty sure it’s the tomato leaf tea, but it did get a lot colder soon after that, so I’m going to try it again in the spring to see if it works then.
Nice!!