What are some of your most memorable garden mistakes?

One mistake I am really trying to overcome is something I do almost every year. Sowing seeds indoors too early. This year I will not do that (she says again).  

I did a lot of reading about gardening and finally decided to go with the SFG method. I went to purchase compost, peat and vermiculite and was sure to get 5 different types or sources for my MM. While I was at the big home store to purchase some of my materials I just happened to see the SFG book and I thought I might as well get it since that is what I will be doing. I thought I understood the method behinds Mel's Mix because I had 1 type of vermiculite, 2 different brands of peat and 2 different brands of composted cow manure. I thought I was successful in getting 5 different types. I had a beautiful garden full of green leaves but not much produce from that first year. I did start reading the book and couldn't put it down until I finished. I finally came to realize I needed 5 different types of compost and I only had one. I have been amending it ever since.

I am looking forward to when I build two more boxes and get to make MM correct right from the start.

H_TX_2 these experiences are the best way to learn because you will not make those same mistakes again.
But of course there are dozens of other mistakes from which to learn. I know.   

camprn wrote:One mistake I am really trying to overcome is something I do almost every year. Sowing seeds indoors too early. This year I will not do that (she says again).  

I do this too  

I have had pretty good results with worm poo tea, and decided it was time to brew some compost tea up and see what it was like. My compost pile was pretty spent by that time, so I picked up a small load of compost from the municipal dump's composting outlet. I used the same proportions as the worm tea and gave it the usual three day steeping time, and ladled it out to my roses and potted flowers- just to see what it would do. To my surprise the potted plants withered down and dropped leaves, the roses' leaves turned brown and the plants went into dormancy in a few weeks- they looked like I just sprayed them with herbicides! I called the composters to see if anyone else was complaining and they (naturally) said NO. I decided to check the Ph with a meter and it registered 4.5!!! I'm so glad I didn't use it on my veggie beds. I used the remainder to kill the weeds in my driveway and tossed the offending compost out in the abandoned field in front of my property. Something like this happened to me once before when I used some lawn trimmings donated by my neighbor. He didn't tell me that he used a weed-and-feed fert on the lawn  

One of the reasons I don't use our free county compost.  No telling what is in there.

Several years ago, I obtained some of this stuff in the Los Angeles area.

Subsequently, I planted bulbs in that space,

Well, out of 40 bulbs (tulips), about three grew, and one bloomed.

After that experience, I dug out the area, put down some weed cloth, and added Mel's Mix.

Result: Shrubs and vines grew, despite lack of sunshine. Not to mention transplanted kale and a clematis. I even grew a potato in that area, which produced the largest spud I've ever grown!

I can mention one thing I did a lot of last year -- trying to train tomato plant branches just a little too much. Often right after the point where I had started bending them, everything yellowed and died. I usually have a gentle touch, or so I thought. I guess not. Lost quite a few branches that way.

Back in my early gardening years, I mucked out the duck pond, and, figuring it would be good fertilizer, I put it on the garden.

My sweet corn went 12 feet high and produced mightily. But the tomatoes, squash and other things made enormous and beautiful plants with nary a blossom until late in the season. We picked hundreds of green tomatoes just before the frost and had them ripening all over the house that fall.

I realized too late that the duck poo in the pond muck was too good a fertilizer. It was very high in nitrogen - which the corn loved - but it suppressed bloom in the other garden veggies, so that they bloomed late in the season and greatly reduced our harvestable crop.

A little is a good thing. Too much is TOO MUCH!