Lessons From My Garden: Failure is OK
I’d like to offer up this lesson I’ve learned from nature: Failure is natural and not to be feared.
Okay, story time. When I first began gardening it was rather stressful for me. I’d start each spring convinced that this would be the year that everything would go as intended. I would envision my meticulously planned garden coming to life complete with garden beds overflowing with vegetables. In this alternate reality my children would frolic among the plants, helping with the harvest while enthusiastically devouring the produce we picked.
All I had to do to get this outcome was follow my plan of action.
And if something didn’t succeed I’d berate myself for each “mistake” or “failure”. Then I’d do it all over again the next season with a “new and improved” system.
In all honesty, I did a lot of that back then. I thought I could plan my way to guaranteed success and failure was to be avoided at all cost. Why? Because when I failed at something I made it mean something horrible about myself. Instead of just learning from the experience and trying something different the next time (spoilers: this didn’t just pertain to gardening), I’d torment myself with criticism of what went wrong and learn nothing.
however, Gardening doesn’t let one dwell on such things because failure is inevitable.
Droughts, pests and rabbits are just a few things that I contend with in my garden. Attempting to stick to my master plan is laughable. Believe me, I stubbornly tried for a few years. I’d make notes and double down on my planning, all to learn that the following seasons brought with it completely different issues.
Then it hit me. It was okay to have things fail.
This realization was so freeing. No longer did I have to worry about my stupid plan and it’s perfect execution. Instead I learned:
It’s fun to try things out without becoming attached to the result. This allowed me to experiment with all sorts of weird varieties of vegetables I knew nobody in my house would ever consume (I’m looking at you Carolina Reaper peppers).
If something doesn’t work, learn from it and try again. It took me four tries (that’s four years!) before I figured out how to grow a healthy tomato plant from seed.
Mistakes can bring beautiful outcomes. One year a neighbor added sunflower seeds to his bird feeder. The birds and chipmunks distributed those seeds all over my garden. The seeds germinated and grew into gorgeous sunflowers that dotted my garden beds.
Flexibility is key. I can plan for hot & dry days but sometimes nature gives me a cool wet summer. In the past I’d stubbornly try to stick to my planting guide, ignoring the shift in circumstances. The result was a poor crop yield and a very grumpy me. Now I just roll with what I’ve been dealt and try to make the best of it.
Learning from mistakes is really hard if we spend all of our time focused on the mistake itself. Instead, try accepting that failure is a natural part of the learning process. The shift in thinking has made all the difference for me, both in and out of the garden.
