MY GARDEN FAIL STORY
My 2026 goal was to plant a garden and make my own food/canned items from what I grew. I wanted to start everything from scratch. I started all my plants from seeds, and germinated them all myself.
I had planned on planting: Roma tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, bell peppers, dill, parsley, marigolds, and nasturtiums. Again, all from seeds.
SEEDS I PLANNED TO PLANT
I got the soil, planters, seeds, heat mats, etc. for the seeds. I started this journey in late January of this year. I researched when to start germinating each plant. I do not have a greenhouse or any special set up for my plants, so they stayed on the floor of my closet with lights after they started sprouting.
SEEDLING TRAYS
MY FIRST SPROUT
MY FIRST TRAY OF SPROUTS
After a few months, I had a closet full of flourishing sprouting plants. I watered them when needed, trimmed them, the works. I was SUPER proud of how well they were turning out. They looked so healthy and were growing so well.
MY CLOSET OF SPROUTS AND GROW LIGHTS
Fast forward to April of this year. For my zone, our last frost date was supposed to be April 15th. However, we had several cold weeks and I didn’t feel comfortable risking the life of my plants by planting them in the cold.
It finally started to warm up in May. I had bought fresh soil, cleaned up my gardens from the previous year, and was ready to plant my babies. The only problem? They were getting root bound in their cells and were starting to die while in the closet. Even after being watered, they still looked terrible.
THE GARDENS BEFORE CLEANING
AFTER PLANTING
So I took the best and strongest looking plants and planted them in my bigger raised garden and felt very confident that they would survive. Little did I know that rabbits could jump that high and would EAT my plants…every single one of them. Overnight.
I only knew what happened because my sister was outside and thought I had planted my plants in my garden. I told her I did plant them. So she took this picture and said “umm……”. And low and behold, all of them were gone.
HOW MY SISTER FOUND MY GARDEN THE VERY NEXT MORNING
So a week goes by, and I still have SOME plants left over that haven’t died yet (most of them had by this point). But I planted those in my smaller garden. Hoping they would survive.
What did I see the next morning, you may be asking yourself. Gone. All gone. Again.
All my hard work. From January till mid-May, all my hard work I put into growing these plants from seeds, and it all failed.
I MAY get some pre-established plants from a local store if I want to keep the garden going. But at this point? I just feel like giving up and not trying anymore. I feel like no matter what I do, they are going to get eaten or get too much rain and drown them, or too much sun and scorch them (thank you DE weather….).
Well, now you know what I’ve been working on the last few months. All for my plans to fail…hopefully next year will be better. Fingers crossed.