Last July I was standing in the yard at dusk getting eaten alive by mosquitoes when a dragonfly the size of my thumb parked itself on the fence post and started picking them off mid-air. Watched it for ten minutes.…
I started saving eggshells because someone on the internet told me they’d fix my tomatoes. Tossed a handful of crushed shells around the base, waited, and nothing happened. The blossom end rot came anyway.
Last October I pulled my dead tomato plants out of the raised bed and stared at the soil underneath.
I wanted raised beds. The cedar kits online started at $80. Pre-made galvanized steel troughs were $150. I had $12 in my pocket and a weekend with no plans.
My first container garden was a cherry tomato in a pot I found behind the garage. No drainage hole. Garden soil from the yard. Full shade for half the day. It produced exactly one tomato before it died.
I’ve been writing gardening guides for this site for a while now, and most of them sound like I know what I’m doing.
Last spring I dumped Epsom salt around every plant in the yard because a Pinterest pin told me to. Tomatoes, roses, herbs, the blueberry bush. All of it got a generous scoop.
I killed two full batches of tomato seedlings before I figured this out. The first time I overwatered them until they rotted. The second time I moved them outside too early and they fried in one afternoon.
