
Last week we got quite a bit of rain and although we normally wait until mid October to plant our fall/winter garden, it’s quite a bit cooler than normal so we are starting a little early. When I pulled our seeds out and started going through them, I thought about some of the gardening mistakes I have made over the years. I thought I’d share them (or at least the ones I can remember) with you.
I truly believe that growing food is simple, not easy but simple; you put some seeds in the ground, water them and if the sun shines, the plant will grow. However, there are a few gardening mistakes that I see gardeners, myself included, make over and over.
Not understanding your climate
Most of the mistakes hinge on one big mistake – not knowing understanding your climate. The USDA has a very handy chart to help gardeners and growers determine if a plant will do well in their area based on how cold their area gets. We call these gardening zones.
This is NOT an exact science but is certainly a good start. Knowing what zone you are in will help you pick seeds, plants and varities that will actually grow in your area. We live in a zone 9a, so if a fruit tree is rated only to zone 7, I will need to just skip planting that variety, since it needs more chilling hours than we get in our climate.
If you need help understanding how gardening zones (both cold hardy and heat zones), daylight hours, rainfall, humidity and other metrics work together to create your growing climate, we have a short ecourse that will help you out.

Starting too big
Sometimes in our excitement we start our garden too big and end up overwhelmed and discouraged. It’s better to grow one small garden bed that is well tended than it is to grow an acre garden that ends up a weedy mess.
I’ve planted too many fruit trees than I could reasonably take care of and had them die in the summer heat. When we first moved here I planted a large area in the back of our garden with corn and melons – the corn did fine but the melons got lost in the 4′ tall grass. It’s discouraging.
If you want to grow food year after year, start small and build on your successes each year.
Planting when others online plants
Another mistake is doing what everyone else online is doing, when they are doing it. I know, I know, it’s hard to wait to start seeds when it seems everyone else is starting them. But if you start them too soon, you’ll wind up with spindly transplants.
One year I tried planting our fall garden in the beginning of September {ahem – we were still having 100 degree days} because I saw all these great posts on how it was now or never for the fall garden. As you can probably guess, those tender little seedlings got burned up. I know better and yet I still got carried away.
For our zone, we plant our spring and summer gardens earlier than most of the country and plant our fall and winter gardens later than most of the rest of the country.

Not dealing with problems right away
Here’s something I do that I hate to admit, not taking care of problems when I notice them. For me it goes something like this. I’m in the garden and I see a bit of powdery mildew on the squash. I should spray the squash with some baking soda and even cut off a few leaves to increase airflow and I do….eventually.
Unfortunately, I sometimes don’t take the time to properly care for problems and they get totally out of control. Here’s the deal, if I’m going to successfully garden using organic practices, I have to take care of problems and pests as soon as I notice them.
If you see vine borer damage on your squash, it must be dealt with immediately. If you see one tomato hornworm or one leaffooted bug, I guarantee you there are more.
If you have powdery mildew mix 3 tablespoons baking soda, 1 tablespoon oil (vegetable or olive oil is fine), and 2 drops dish washing detergent into 1 gallon of water and spray your plants with it.
Following the seed packet planting schedule
Ok, here’s a touchy mistake that goes back to understanding your climate – following the planting schedule on the back of seed packets. Some seed companies do a great job of putting good information on their seed packets. Some don’t.
There is one brand that every time I look at the back of one of their packets, it tells me I can plant from Feb-Sept; this is for tomatoes or lettuce, it doesn’t matter. Of the companies that do a good job, remember they can’t write everything on the back of the seed packet, the space is limited. This is where knowing your gardening zone and climate come in handy.
I know that it is very hard for most seeds to germinate in 100 degree temperatures. And yet, I see a lot of seeds packets that say I can sow the seeds during the summer in my zone. So, I just ignore that part of the seed packets.
Planting all the seeds in a packet
Most seed packets have way more seeds than you need to plant at one time. No one really needs 30 zucchini plants started at the same time – unless you’re selling at market.
Instead, sowing seeds should be staggered over the period of a couple of weeks. This is called succession planting and while it *can* get complicated, it doesn’t have to. Here are some easy ways to succession plant your garden.
Not making friends with locally owned nurseries
Ignoring your locally owned nurseries is a big mistake. These nurseries have a vested interest in you succeeding. Also, most of these owners know your local climate and can help you learn when to plant certain plants and what varieties do well in your area. Most of the time, the people who own and work in local nurseries are gardeners and love to talk gardening.
Occasionally, you’ll get someone who doesn’t know much or is condescending about what they know, if that happens just find another local nursery (or feed store) to shop at.
But don’t rely solely on books and what you read on the internet.
Not keeping gardening notes
Lastly, not keeping notes on what worked and what didn’t work can keep you making the same mistake year after year. Here’s how this one goes down for me. I’m in the garden and realize that a certain variety of tomatoes (we’ll call it X) just isn’t doing as well as my other varieties. I think, “I’ll have to remember that for next year.”
Then next January I’m looking at seed catalogs and I come to the amazing tomato section. And I think, “Oh we planted X last year and really liked the flavor” so I order some, forgetting that although we might have liked the flavor we only go 5 tomatoes off those plants.
I’m a slow learner sometimes, but I have learned that if I ever think “I need to remember that for next year”, I need to ahead and make a note of it in my gardening notebook.

What about you, what are some of your gardening mistakes and what do you do to no longer make them?
Very good advice! We have made most of those mistakes. We have been fortunate to have found a great little Amish farm where we buy our plants each year. They are so healthy and inexpensive that we do better just buying those than starting from seed. We love supporting their local business and we get an amazing amount of clean produce each year.
That’s wonderful Rebecca. I wish we had a good local source for transplants. It’s nice when you figure out what works for you, isn’t it?
I think you are a bit confused on what USDA zones means. It has to do with cold hardiness not hotness. I live in 6a, so if I see 7 on a package, then it means it’s too cold for the plant to survive where I live. You are in 9a, so if you see a 7 then you don’t have to worry about it getting too cold for the plant to survive.
That said, the USDA does have a separate zone map for how hot an area gets in the summer.
Thanks for pointing that out. I do know that the USDA zones are cold hardiness, I just worded my example poorly (I’ll edit it to avoid confusion). I was thinking of fruit trees when I wrote that example – there are some that need cold winters (apples, cherries) and we just don’t get them. There are a few varieties of apples that will grow in our area, so I would need to make sure that I get one of those varieties that doesn’t need many chilling hours. Brussels sprouts is another plant that needs more cold than we have.
I didn’t know about the heat tolerant map, http://www.ahs.org/gardening-resources/gardening-maps/heat-zone-map, thanks so much for pointing that out.
I live in the lower part of zone 7. Many years it’s too hot for tomatoes but this year it was just a little cooler and we had a bumper crop! Every year is different.
Yep, every year is different. That’s wonderful you got a bumper crop of tomatoes; I love tomatoes. We usually have many days over 100 and get tomatoes. But we can plant them in early to mid March so we have 90-120 days before we hit triple digits. Is the reason you don’t get many tomatoes because there isn’t much time between your last frost and the heat? This is very interesting to me.
Great suggestions. It’s difficult being “out of the loop” with regard to planting times, but you just have to do what works in your zone. We’re planting our fall garden now when most folks are putting their gardens to bed. Enjoy your fall garden!
THAT is one of the hardest things for me. I have to put my blinders on and just do what I know to do this time of year.
You are speaking my language, sister! You with the powdery mildew? That’s me. Totally guilty. I have started taking notes in a binder more over the last two years which has helped tremendously but I’m otherwise guilty of most of these mistakes.
It gets me every year. But here’s to next year, right?
We have the opposite problem, we’re in zone 2b/3. It’s almost too depressing to read some blogs. Winter gardening? Ha. Last winter the frost went down eight feet, with temperatures staying below -30 for three months. What will grow in that?
I’m so sorry, I sure it can be hard with such a long winter. Have you ever read Northern Homestead? Anna and her family live in upper Canada, she has some really great posts on winter gardening. I’m always inspired by her. http://northernhomestead.com/category/winter-growing/
For powdery mildew, I highly recommend spraying with dilute lay nonfat (skim) milk, in about a 8-10% milk n water solution. It arrests the mildew so the plant can’t recover & what drips not the soil is nutritious for the plant, too. I wouldn’t have believed it could work so well, but after trying it a couple years ago, it worked so well that I’m sold on it! When I live June tends to have gray & overcast mornings, & that sometimes is the case in May & early July as well. So powdery mildew is a problem on squash, cucumber, & tomato leaves. Spray daily for a week or two, then every two or three days after that. Only use nonfat milk as the fat in low fat or whole milk will go rancid & make the garden stink. Nonfat won’t have that problem.
Thanks for the tip. We used it this year and it worked really well.
The link for “heat tolerant zone” doesn’t go to anything related to that. It goes to Adventist Health Systems
Thank you for letting me know the link is being redirected. Here’s a new link, http://solanomg.ucanr.edu/files/245158.pdf, and I’ve edited the post.
Good advise but on my seedlings I have what look like fruit flies and I have fruit fly traps which I am sure these little pests are laughing at me because it did not work. What are these little pests and how do I get rid of them?
This article might be helpful.