It is amazing how quickly frustration goes away with knowledge. As I work this year's garden, I am learning all I can (thru books, web searches, forums, etc) and experimenting to see what works and what doesn't. It is quite interesting how satisfying failures can be when you allow yourself to get past the aggravation and see the knowledge that can be gained to be used on future plantings. Just in the past month and a half since I planted, I have learned many lessons that will be valuable come next spring.
While I admittedly would have liked to have known all this before I started, I take it as part of my initiation of sorts. As a new gardener, I now know that it is crazy to believe that your first efforts will be 100 percent successful. You have to invest the time to experiment and see what works for you, in your area of the world. There are so many factors that affect the outcome of a garden—soil condition, weather, available time, pests, diseases, money—and they change every year, and are different for everyone, even if the distance between is just around the corner. And it only gets harder if you are trying to go organic! (Right now, I am working on sustainable; organic may have to wait a few years.)
So, if you are a new gardener like me, allow yourself to fail and let it be OK. Figure out what went wrong and how to correct it and use that information to create a success next season!
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