What are some of your most memorable garden mistakes?

I have made a lot of mistakes in my years of gardening and learned a lot of lessons. How about you? Please share so we may all learn.http://faq.gardenweb.com/faq/lists/peren/2002092316009274.html

Letting my chickens into the garden area in the off-season. Their scratching can empty a SFG box in no time. Now, I screw down scrap plywood over the boxes on the ground.

I planted my herbs in a too shady spot.  The only ones that came up were dill and parsley who Ive read dont mind shade.    

Not staying on top of pruning and weaving my tomatoes up.  They turned into giant bushy jungles that crowded my peppers.

Watering was awful.  I had to drag 3 hoses across the yard and they didnt really reach.

Thats all I can think of.

planting my carrots and then laying down newspaper as a weed barrier.   It took me a month to figure out what the mistake was.  

R&R -- thyme is good in partial shade. Mine didn't get much sun at all and did fine. Didn't taste like anything though ...

One of my most memorable is setting up my zucchini where I wanted to trellis them, and planting them at that density, only to find out they were not a vining squash but a bush.

The most memorable nursery mistake I've bumped into so far was when I bought two types of tomatillos, a green and a purple -- and they both turned out to be green. Some opined that they only turned purple if their husks peeled back so they could get sun ... nope. They could turn purple after picking? Nope. That's not the only switcheroo that nursery pulled on me.

Two summers ago (my first year) during a heat wave I turned the hose on the greens...and just about cooked them.    

CC

I was being so diligent until about half way through I realized these 
"weeds" were the ground cover I had planted last season. Awe!!

Because of this Forum, I didn't really make any bad mistakes as a Newbie.  Well, using Kelloggs as the compost part of MM was the worst over-all mistake but that was frantically remedied through the season by making 3 batches of C+ to B+ grade compost.  I was just so anxious to get growing.  

I guess the compost piles would be a second mistake.  They would get up to 130-160* but I couldn't turn them.  Still got some good stuff but a 3rd - 4th of each had to go back into the compost pile.  I'm all set with a new compost square frame this year. Bring it on!

The other mistake I made was not keeping on top of growing zucchini and yellow squash vertically.  They would fall over and I would have to re-direct them to the stakes.  Looked like they needed a good chiropractor.

Marc Iverson wrote:R&R -- thyme is good in partial shade.  Mine didn't get much sun at all and did fine.  Didn't taste like anything though ...

One of my most memorable is setting up my zucchini where I wanted to trellis them, and planting them at that density, only to find out they were not a vining squash but a bush.

The most memorable nursery mistake I've bumped into so far was when I bought two types of tomatillos, a green and a purple -- and they both turned out to be green.  Some opined that they only turned purple if their husks peeled back so they could get sun ... nope.  They could turn purple after picking?  Nope.  That's not the only switcheroo that nursery pulled on me.  

I planted thyme there, but it didnt come up.  Maybe it would have done okay if I transplanted seedlings.

More than once I've prepped a square for planting seeds, stuck in a plant marker, and then weeks later realized that I didn't put the seeds in.   

boffer wrote:More than once I've prepped a square for planting seeds, stuck in a plant marker, and then weeks later realized that I didn't put the seeds in.   

Hahaha I did that last year too with my spinach.

Biggest mistake thus far was not realizing that the peat moss doubled in cubic footage when opened up.  My first 3 SFG beds were awful.  I'm still amending but think we're about right now.  We'll see this spring.

Haste makes waste - is a truism for SFG too   

Planting a second planting of spaghetti squash and butternut squash in the same squares later in the season... I ended up with mosaic virus.   Still was able to harvest but learn that lesson.

Camp,  That sign is fabulous!  Is it available someplace?

Audrey,  I'm planting my new squash where I grew my late fall-winter spaghetti squash!!      I thought in SFG you could designate certain boxes for certain crops.  Yes, I've read that rotation is wise but I have the original and the new West side specifically for vining melons and vertical tomatoes, because of the sun problem.  Should I use a flame thrower or spray a bleach solution on the supports and hydrogen peroxide on the top of the MM?

audrey.jeanne.roberts wrote:Biggest mistake thus far was not realizing that the peat moss doubled in cubic footage when opened up.  My first 3 SFG beds were awful.  I'm still amending but think we're about right now.  We'll see this spring.

Haste makes waste - is a truism for SFG too   
.

Could add "Read twice, mix once!"

My biggest mistake was to let my kids hold the seed packets while I poked the holes...needless to say lots of things come up in that one square beside the square I was "holing". Now they get to poke the holes and I get to hold the seed packets.

mschaef, I can picture that.

sanderson wrote:mschaef, I can picture that.

Made me giggle.  
Good to be able to learn from others' mistakes without cost to oneself.

Kelejan wrote:

sanderson wrote:mschaef, I can picture that.

Made me giggle.  
Good to be able to learn from others' mistakes without cost to oneself.

Those squares needed Camp's sign!

GG

Living in the southwest, conserving water is always a priority.  My husband watered the tomato plants I had brought into the sun room for the winter with 2 quart jars of water I had sitting on the counter.  When I began another day of pickling beets, I searched for the left over brine I had placed in jars and put on the counter.  I couldn't find it.  A few days later I noticed the tomatoes were looking rather sad and had a funny white film on their leaves.  I had never seen anything like it and after further study I could detect is was a salty residue.  Well, now I know what happened to the pickling brine. Needless to say the tomatoes didn't make it.  He also helped me pull "weeds" in the flower patch.  Every potato plant was pulled out and when I informed him they were potatoes he said he thought they were nightshade, and " WHO plants potatoes in the flower beds anyway?".  So my biggest mistake was to let him help, or did he do it on purpose so I wouldn't make him help anymore?

   Ah, the subtle sabotage trick, passed down from father to son!

To your husband!    Well played!

Ooh, I can play this game! 

Our sun situation here isn't ideal (big trees that we love, but that make it challenging to garden), so we really didn't know what to expect during our first summer. I planted red and orange bell peppers (our favorite vegetable), and with the exception of one or two, they stayed green all summer. We ate our fill of green peppers (NOT our favorites), but based on all the cautionary tales I'd read while plan the garden, I became convinced that we didn't have enough sun, and certainly didn't have enough good sun, to make them turn color. We were burned out on the garden at that point (went bigger than we should have), so we gave up on them and mostly stopped watering (kept waiting for rain that didn't come). Then in mid-September, we went away for a week, and when we came home, we had an 8x4 bed FULL of beautiful, leathery red and orange peppers    Those dang things continued to turn color into the beginning of November. I managed to salvage a few, but I was so upset with myself! Lesson learned *sigh*

All these stories are making me feel a bit better about our escapades here  

This is not exactly a garden mistake exactly.  My very first time I bought plants from a nursery I felt like I was really splurging since I had never bought starts before. I took my four (at the time) kids with me. They were seven and under. They were actually quite good. I got my 3/4 flat of plants. Put them on the top of my car so I could get the kids all buckled in. (Ok you are already guessing what I did). I drove off, got three blocks away. I had to make a fast left hand turn onto a main street and they slid off onto the street. I was so broken hearted. I think I saved half of them and sure learned from that.

My first year I filled up my beds with free city yard waste compost   My root veggies don't grow very well in any of the beds so I am unsure if it's related.