Afraid to Mess Up Your Garden? Read This First.

Are you afraid to mess up your garden? You’re not the only one. Lots of folks think about starting a garden. But one of the biggest reasons people don’t is because they’re afraid they’ll screw it up.

And not just screw up quietly. In the world of social media, mess ups happen publicly—where someone might see it. Where some smug garden know-it-all on the internet might pop in to say, “Well, you should’ve hardened off your seedlings better.”

Here’s a little secret: Most people aren’t afraid of gardening, they’re afraid of failing at it. Especially where someone else might notice.

Are you afraid to mess up your garden?

I get it. The anxiety makes sense. But seriously—what’s the worst that’s going to happen?

Someone laughs?
A neighbor makes a comment?
Some stranger on Instagram clutches their pearls because you planted your tomatoes “wrong”?

Let’s back up to look at the big picture and calm that voice down for a second.

Part of the problem is we get so excited about gardening that we want to go all in from day one. Lettuce from the store is suddenly unacceptable and so we put all our faith, trust, and hope in some seeds we sprinkle on the ground.

What’s more is that now, the survival of that lettuce (or cucumber or tomato or pea) isn’t just about being able to eat something we grew, it’s about what it represents about our awesomeness as a person and the projects we take on.

Friend, that’s a lot of pressure on you and a tiny packet of seeds.

Honestly, being afraid to mess up your garden just means you care. I get it! But unless you’re banking your family’s entire survival on this garden (and if you’re reading this post on a smartphone, you’re probably not), you can calm down a bit. Take it down a notch. This is not the apocalypse. If, for some reason, your garden ends up to be a complete and utter failure, you’re absolutely still going to have food. Either from a friend whose garden survived, the farmers market, or the grocery store.

You’re not going to starve if your cucumbers flop. You won’t die if the beans don’t work out. You are allowed to try this and mess it up.

And—brace yourself—you will.

The most alive kind of learning happens in a garden, messed up or not!

During your gardening adventures, you’re going to forget to water something. Or water it too much. You will plant things way too close together, or next to something that totally chokes it out. The tray of “cucumber” seedlings you picked up will turn out to be some kind of aggressive squash-zilla. You’ll wake up one morning to discover something got eaten, wilted, exploded, or… just gave up.

And you will stand there like: “What the heck. I thought this was supposed to be peaceful.”

Here’s the good news:
That’s not failure. That’s gardening.

It’s the most alive kind of learning you’ll ever do.
And it doesn’t mean you’re not good at it.
It means you’re doing it.

Garden Mess-ups I have personally achieved:

• Started all my seeds at the same time indoors (even some that didn’t need to be started indoors) and ended up with a jungle in my house way before stuff could be planted outside.
• Forgot to label my seedlings. Ended up with a patch of tomatoes whose variety remained a mystery until they ripened.
• Let my tomato plants fall over because I didn’t stake them until it was way too late.
• Forgot to harvest lettuce and ended up with bitter lettuce trees.
• Grew a bunch of stuff that seemed cool but had no idea how to cook it, so it all rotted.
• Forgot to pick the little zucchini and the next day had baseball bat sized zucchini.
  

The list goes on (for soooooo long) but this is a blog post, not a novel. The point is, despite my screw ups, I still garden. Every single year. Because mistakes aren’t the end, they’re just part of the rhythm.

You might be afraid to make a mess of your garden, but that’s how most of us started. Don’t believe me? Ask anyone who gardens (and is willing to be honest). They’ll all tell you about the time something flopped, or bolted, or just vanished. Even seasoned gardeners still lose plants every year. The difference is that they know it’s not personal.

It’s just part of the deal.

(Check out my pal who has a horticulture degree and still messes up her garden. If that doesn’t give you permission to move forward with your own adventure, I’m not sure what will!)

Maybe it’s not you, maybe it’s Ma Nature.

You can do everything “right” and still end up with weird results. You can do everything that worked last year and it can totally flop this year. The weather does what it wants. Rabbits do what they want.
So do aphids and chickens and dogs and kids and well-meaning significant others.

Don’t be so afraid of messing up your garden. Let it be imperfect. Let it be an experiment. Let it teach you. Isn’t that a much less stressful way to approach it?

You’ll learn about gardening by doing it. And you know what? After you plant a garden—whether it thrives or flops—you’re officially a gardener.

Not just someone thinking about it. Not just someone planning to do it. Someone who is actually doing it. And that’s what matters. So go mess up your garden!

Next up: We’ll talk about some lazy ways to keep things alive without losing your mind. You CAN do this gardening thing!

Did you catch the other posts in this Stupid Simple Gardening series? Check out How to Start a Garden Without Overthinking It, What to Plant in Your Garden: A Realistic Beginner’s Guide, and How Much Space Do I Need to Grow a Garden?

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