Sometimes, when you try to grow as a gardener, you make mistakes, and things don’t go as planned. This is what happened to me last year when I decided to grow everything from seed.
The garden experts stirred my enthusiasm for starting my own seeds. I could save money, they said, and have the joy of watching my seedlings come to life.
Accordingly, I resolved to buy only organic seeds and pocket the dollars I would have spent on seedlings. I would be a gardener from the start of each plant to the finish.
I studied the seed catalogs, circling each variety of bean, melon, or tomato seed I wanted to purchase. Finally, I bought most of my seeds from High Country Mowing and Kitchen Garden Seeds. I also bought growing pots and seed-starting medium. I even purchased a grow light.
I thought, in my seed-starting fervor, that it would all be easy. The reality, however, turned out to be quite different. I could not have made more mistakes if I had planned them.
Mistake #1: Mixed Up Seeds
I began opening the seed packs one evening sitting on my sofa with on a tray in my lap. My evil 
cat — doesn’t he just look it? — immediately intrigued, jumped over to investigate. He knocked my tray askew, open seed packs spilled, and tiny seeds ran together. Once I got over my initial dismay at this turn of events, I planted the seeds anyway. “I will be able to tell the difference when they come up,” I told myself.
Mistake #2: Not enough water
Fearful of watering too much, I decided to use a mister. I misted and misted on a daily basis, all the while watching for germination. After several days of this, my daughter visited. She looked at my seed trays and said, “These seem awfully dry, Mom.” Sure enough, when I began to actually water, my seeds began to germinate. “I am on the road to healthy seedlings at last,” I thought.
Mistake #3: Not enough light
The seedlings came up, though some of my little grow-spaces were host to many seedlings, while others had very few. But they were spindly things. “These don’t look anything like the healthy seedlings I bought last year at the Farmers’ Market,” I said to my husband.
Doing some research , I learned that the most likely cause was lack of sufficient light. Accordingly, I lowered the grow light until it was just above the plants. “That will do the trick,” I thought.
Mistake #4: Windstorm
A few weeks later, into March now, I thought it was time to put the plants outside in a 2′ x 2′ “greenhouse” my husband and I had set up. I had purchased this little structure on sale at a local nursery. It had six shelves and a plastic covering that zipped up the front. “I can open the cover in the daytime and close it at night to harden off the seedlings and protect them,” I thought. But I did not reckon on a windstorm that came rushing through three days later. A particularly strong gust blew my flimsy little greenhouse over, spilling most of the seed pots! Horrified, I salvaged as many as I could — but the worst was yet to come.
Mistake #5: Roasting plants
Roasted vegetables may be delicious, but roasted seedlings are not a good idea. My husband and I had to be out of town for a couple of days, and I thought my best move would be to water well and then zip up the re-stabilized greenhouse. This is what I did. Alas, we had a short heat spell while we were gone, and my poor seedlings roasted in their seed pots. “There is nothing to do but get rid of these pathetic little things,” I said, on my way to the compost pile.
How It All Turned Out
Despite this comedy-of-errors seed-starting adventure, all was not lost. I still had quite a few seeds to direct sow. They included lettuces, spinach, kale, and peas, all of which I planted in a bed together and began to harvest just a few weeks later. My goodness, those early salads and fresh peas tasted better than it’s possible to describe.
I purchased seedlings of peppers, tomatoes, and herbs at the Farmers’ Market, as I had done in years past. They looked strong and healthy, unlike my own spindly babies. They grew and produced a bounty of vegetable goodness.
Seed potatoes also provided us with a harvest of tasty tubers.
Finally, as it grew hotter, I direct sowed beans and a winter squash, both of which came up and provided good things to eat.
What I Learned
- First of all, I learned that garden fiascoes like this one become funny after a time. Now I just laugh at all the mistakes I made, one after the other.
- Second, I learned that seed-starting is tricky. Germination may be easy, but getting the seedlings to the finish line is not. It requires the right equipment, an adequate amount of dedicated cat-free space, know-how, and quite a bit of time and tender, loving care. I truly admire the gardeners who do it all.
- I learned that there is more than one way to start. This year, I will direct sow seeds when possible and purchase seedlings from the Farmers’ Market otherwise.
The fact is, my direct-sow-and-Farmers’-Market approach works. It costs more, true, but it’s also less time-consuming. Plus, it is a good thing to support others who are farming for a 
living. The end result is what counts. My purchased seedlings and direct sowing provided me and my family with delicious as-local-as-it-gets food throughout the season.
And, then, one of the most important things to learn from gardening is this: There’s always next year … it’s never too late to try again.
How will you start your vegetable garden this year? If you are interested in starting your plants from seed, I hope you won’t let my little horror story stop you. Good resources include Seed Starting Basics on A Way to Garden with Margaret Roach and numerous seed-starting articles on You Grow Girl with Gayla Trail.
