So we bought a house with a big yard to match my big dreams of one day having the perfect vegetable garden. When I say perfect, I mean something Better Homes & Gardens would be proud to use as their spring cover. So I ordered a raised bed kit off of Amazon, filled it with expensive dirt and marked off a square foot grid with some twine. Because that’s what I thought would work best based on reading other people’s success stories. So off I went to Lowe’s to buy my first plants to fill that convenient little grid. I had this!

I was quite confident my little garden would grow. And why not? If one person can do it, so can another. That was my philosophy anyhow. That was before I had the joy of experiencing such things as soil nutrient deficiency, fertilizer burn, tomato blight, squash bugs, proper thinning methods, companion planting (who knew some plants didn’t get along?), not to mention the ravaging effect of South Georgia summers. Then there’s hurricane season – something we’ve started to plan around these last few years.

Before I got started I spent some time researching the how-to’s and what-if’s of successful gardening. I educated myself, graduating with the self-proclaimed honor of summa cum laude from the University of Pinterest. As Ching would say “I was a winner!” A phrase of which would take on different nuances of meaning, kinda like the proverbial southern “bless your heart”. Unfortunately, those orderly little boards I had created with all of those clever pins weren’t enough to prepare me for that first year as Farmer Laura, Provider of Sustenance. Sadly, if it were up to me my family would have starved to death. Needless to say, I sucked.

At first the tomato plants shot up to the sky and the lettuce starters provided us with a few good salads. Unfortunately with only four square feet of romaine, a few good salads were all we were going to get. The carrots quickly became over crowded and the pepper plants cowered in the shadow of those giant tomato plants, tomato plants that had not as of yet produced tomatoes. Still I thought “I’ve got this.” So I ordered my second raised bed and filled it with more expensive dirt.

Needless to say season one would turn out a tad disappointing. Those giant tomato plants produced about six tomatoes altogether. The carrots didn’t work out at all and the peppers, who I counted as underdogs in the race, actually brought us several (small) peppers. We won’t even discuss the squash. The squash was a crash and burn experiment. Followed immediately thereafter by pumpkins which, bless my heart, I learned were also in the squash family. After returning to my alma mater I found several pins that went into great detail about something called a squash vine borer bug. What a coincidence – I had just seen a couple similarly marked insects after I ripped up my whole crop (four plants) of zucchini, only to immediately plant pumpkin seeds. Don’t judge. I had 120 days to go until Halloween. I needed to get those Jack-O-Lanterns in the ground!

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With disappointment there would also come encouragement. I soon discovered that my one good crop – my crop of abundance – was basil! Who knew? Effortlessly my basil plants grew, and grew, and grew. Soon my little pest-infested garden started to smell like sweet licorice. Which is kind of weird but who cares, I was growing something! I had experienced success! With my head held high I returned once again to the hallowed halls of academia in search of pins on what I could actually do with all that basil. I discovered, as if for the first time, pesto! Lovely, tasty, creamy and ever so expensive if you have to buy it – PESTO! Suddenly my toils had purpose. My garden had produced.

So what did I take away from that first year? What had I actually learned? An infinite amount of little tidbits about what works and doesn’t work for my little patch of garden. You see, not every garden is the same. Some advice might work for me, but not for you, and vice-versa. You might have better (free) dirt that’s richer than mine. I might have a longer, although be it hotter, growing season than you do. In the end the plants will decide. They are the ones that know what they need to grow into healthy crops. We really do have to follow their lead. Oh I still return to Pinterest, daily actually. But it’s with the understanding that growth and change come from trial and error and not so much from banking on the experience of others. We have to learn from our mistakes and keep planting those seeds in spite of the setbacks. Those seeds will pop up when the time and conditions are right and we will find ourselves to have grown by their example. That’s what gardening is all about really. Hoping for a better season than the last, and looking forward to the next season with hope.