3 Lessons I've Learned from Gardening

1. “Intuition is good; sometimes Internet is better.”

Fourth of July, for the FIRST time, I looked up something about gardening on the Internet—why my broccoli had burst into flowers. It didn’t resemble the broccoli I knew and loved. I learned that, because the soil got too warm, the broccoli “bolted.”

This broccoli has “bolted.”

2. The hardest part of gardening is waiting for the yield.

We’ve been eating a lot of lettuce and herbs, but have yet to enjoy the promising cucumbers, tomatoes, peppers, and strawberries. Also, vermin steal every barely ripe tomato and pink strawberry. When I open up the fortress that protects our garden to do some weeding or harvesting, I stuff rocks into animal holes and shake fox urine granules around the perimeter. The granules seem to help, but I haven’t religiously applied after rain, as per instructions.

3. We don’t ALL need to be friends.

After getting schooled on broccoli, I peeked at cucumber info, because the plants are growing outta control! I had no idea they’d proliferate like the Duggar family. My cucumber plant was sending out spiraling tentacles and clinging to its neighbors. That’s when I learned it’s not recommended to plant cucumbers and tomatoes next to each other. Big oops! I’ve trained the cucumbers away from the tomatoes. I think they’ll coexist. But they weren’t meant to get friendly.