Mistakes, mishaps and miracles!

[Peanut]

Here we have a thread to confess all our gardening and growing mistakes, mishaps and miralces.

[Peanut]

I better confess to my own recent mishap. I forgot to water my tiny tomato seedlings for a few days, which meant they baked dry on the heat mat and half of them are now dead

I better sow some more.

[Containergardener]

Ohhh no . Perhaps they'll revive ?

[Peanut]

Ohhh no . Perhaps they'll revive ?

Sadly they had almost shrivelled to the point of barely being visible. When I mess up, I do it properly! 🤣

[Containergardener]

Ah you tested them well then 😄

[Nicos]

Mistake….big one!
When I was pretty new to growing from seed I sowed directly a few lines of something…then weeded by hand thoroughly each week. Eventually the plants grew to about 6” in nice neat lines.
Yup…weeds
I’d weeded out other weeds and the real seedlings leaving one type of weed.

Moral of this story?….look at the plant ID of its seedlings before you start weeding.

[mothhawk]

I had a pot of basil that became infested with fungus gnats. I could see the tiny larvae in the saucer under the pot. I stood the pot in half an inch of vinegar to see if that would kill them off. It did the job a treat. But I forgot that the soil would draw the vinegar up just the same as it draws up water. Yes, it killed the basil too.

[JoaoLeaftide]

Ha, I feel this. Planted out courgettes way too early last year thinking the forecast looked fine. Frost got every single one overnight.

[Andraste]

One of my best was intending to mist a tray of lettuce seedlings with water but grabbing a bottle of kitchen cleaner instead. Lovely lemon scent but funnily enough they didn't survive

[Bren In Pots]

An early mistake of mine was accidentally cutting off the tops of brassicas while trying to fit collars.

[greenishfing]

One of my mistakes was using a brush cutter to "strim" the weeds next to my broad beans. Somehow I managed to "strim" their support structure that I had erected which gave way and the beanstalks snapped.

On another occasion I was growing peas and grabbed some dead twigs I'd pruned from my apple trees to poke into the soil to use as supports. The twigs thought that they were Lazarus and quickly burst into leaf. I'm not sure if that was a mistake or a miracle!

[mothhawk]

On another occasion I was growing peas and grabbed some dead twigs I'd pruned from my apple trees to poke into the soil to use as supports. The twigs thought that they were Lazarus and quickly burst into leaf. I'm not sure if that was a mistake or a miracle!

That reminds me of a farmer friend who cut down some goat willow and being of an economical turn of mind used the stout poles as fenceposts. Ten years later he had angry complaints that he had wantonly vandalised a row of trees in his field. He had cut down his fenceposts.

[Penellype]

One for the miracles list.

I like pushing the boundaries, and having grown melons successfully a few times I decided to try a watermelon. I got seeds of a variety called Little Darling, which is said to grow well outdoors and sowed 2 in late April at the same time and in the same conditions as the melons. By mid May the melons had all germinated and been planted out, but there was no show at all from the watermelon so I took the pot out of the propagator and put it on the draining board in the utility room to be dealt with later. On 6th June I noticed the dried up pot of compost and decided to reuse it for some basil. I soaked it and sowed the basil then put it back in the propagator. 2 days later one of the watermelon seeds germinated.

Despite being nearly 2 months late germinating I did get 2 very small edible watermelons from the plant.

[Peanut]

In 2024 I bought a little 9cm pots of French tarragon, lemon verbena and a little bay tree (twig) which I planted together in a pot. Over the Winter they were given multiple layers of fleece and generally looked after. This Winter I completely forgot about them and left them uncovered. To my delight, they have all survived. The French tarragon is already going mad, the lemon verbena is just coming into leaf and the bay in the middle is coming along nicely.

It's a miracle!

[Andraste]

I think I've gone too early with my cucumbers they look fabulous but it's not warm enough for them to go in the blow away & they're starting to flower I hate to pick the flowers off but I'm wondering if I maybe should?