Confessions of a Beginner Grow-Your-Owner

Why gardening disasters are all part of the journey

Everyone makes mistakes, right? I’ve definitely made my fair share. Agreeing to be chief bridesmaid without insisting on power of veto on the dress. Secretly drinking tequila shots on an empty stomach to dull the pain of the pink puffy monstrosity and matching bonnet. And my all-time classic, waking up next to the best man I swear was the spitting image of Idris Elba the night before.  In fact, you think of an embarrassing mistake, and I’ve done it. My mum is so proud.

But for some reason, friends who have known me for years and witnessed these mistakes weirdly believe that I’ve never made any gardening mistakes and that I’ve been successfully growing stuff from Day 1.

They couldn’t be more wrong.

Take the first time I tried to grow carrots. I’d set aside a whole raised bed for them, made sure the soil was nice and sandy, and remembered not to dig in any manure – which they hate. I took my two dozen carrot seeds and sowed them 45 cm apart – plenty of room for bunches to grow, I thought. I tended them over the coming weeks. I watered. I weeded. I watched. I waited. Then came that special Sunday when I invited the family to help me dig up our sweet and succulent crop. There I was, scrabbling around in the earth, desperately hunting for the bunch of carrots beneath each seed sown, only to pull up one solitary carrot beneath each seed. One carrot? One single carrot? My entire crop was twenty-four carrots? What the hell? 

Then I learned from Lady Muck Senior, who was desperately trying not to give in to hysterical laughter like the rest of my family, that apparently carrots don’t grow in bunches like the ones I buy in Waitrose. Who knew?

Then there was the time I killed Toby, Ted, Tim and their twelve cherry tomato siblings. I’d known them from birth, watched them burst into life and tended them lovingly. Once they were big enough, it was time for them to leave their sunny windowsill. Alas, they didn’t last long on my patio. You see, I’d been worried about the wicked whitefly covering their ickle leaves – Toby’s in particular. Well, he was always my favourite. So I reached into the greenhouse for the organic pest spray, grabbed the first bottle I saw and gave them all a generous coating. Then out of the corner of my eye I caught sight of another bottle, sitting on the table, clearly labelled ‘organic pest spray’.

My jaw dropped. My heart sank. I looked down at the bottle in my hand. Oh. My. God. Noooo! I’d grabbed the organic weedkiller spray from the greenhouse instead. Cue much sprinting to and from the water butt, pouring water over the tomatoes to wash off the weedkiller. But I knew it was too late. My babies were dead. I burst into tears and had to turn to Bombay Sapphire for solace. The next morning, I found their fifteen little corpses, crumpled and scorched, staring up at me reproachfully. What a terrible mother. 

You see, as every seasoned grow-your-owner knows, we all make mistakes when we start out. Just like we do in the dating game. And to all of you newbies out there reading this, if you’re feeling a tad embarrassed about your emerging interest in gardening, don’t be! And if not having a clue what you’re doing is putting you off having a go at growing some stuff this year, don’t let it! Like me, just remember to laugh at your cock-ups. Use them as great dinner-party stories. Just make sure you have a plentiful supply of wine as you entertain your guests with your latest growing faux pas.

Right, must dash. Got to relabel the greenhouse sprays. My old eyes clearly aren’t getting any younger. Yesterday I mistakenly bought a bottle of non-alcoholic Rioja…