• Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Heavy Petal

Gardening for everyone

  • About
  • Journal
  • Small-Space Vegetable Gardens
You are here: Home / Blogging / The myth of the no-maintenance garden

The myth of the no-maintenance garden

March 10, 2020 by Andrea Bellamy 1 Comment

A small but abundant vegetable patch with corn, cabbage, and zucchini
My backyard veggie patch is an ongoing experiment, a trial (and error) patch providing continual lessons.

If you spend any time on the internet reading about gardening (or any topic, for that matter) you’re familiar with articles with titles like, “31 Foolproof Edibles for Beginning Gardeners” or “Top 5 Easiest Edibles to Grow.” These listicles are usually accompanied by flawless photos of lush gardens designed to solicit a “pin it” response—and a whole lot of Google ads.

Without getting into the potential unreliability of information found in random internet articles, I can say one thing for certain: there’s no such thing as a foolproof plant. True, some edibles are easier to grow than others. But I’ve killed mint, and it’s commonly thought of as an invasive plant. There’s nothing like inadvertently killing a garden thug to make you humble.

The appeal of the low-maintenance garden

And yet there’s a whole industry built to sell us on the idea of a low-maintenance landscape. Products that promise to eliminate time spent weeding and watering. To make planting faster, and the plants themselves more—here’s that word again—foolproof. I see the rise in popularity of low- or “no-maintenance” (ha!) landscapes as part of a simultaneous trend: the one where you’re supposed to do everything perfectly, yet have it all look effortless.

There’s nothing like inadvertently killing a garden thug to make you humble.”

I’m not sure where we got the idea that we could have our perfect, no-maintenance gardens and eat them, too. When I first started growing food, I expected to be able to put a seed in a pot, water it regularly, and harvest a bushel of cucumbers in two months’ time. And that was pre-Pinterest. I pity—no, am upset for—those new gardeners who fall into the same trap. After all, they’ve read the articles! They’re planting the “Top 10 No-Fail Vegetables” as decreed somewhere online. They’re enthusiastic, earnest. I want them to succeed.

Failing better every year

Unfortunately, there are so many ways to fail. When my cucumber plant struggled through that first summer, producing yellowish leaves and only one measly, mealy cucurbit, I did some research. And as when researching any garden symptom, I came up with an inconclusive list of possible pests, diseases, and soil problems. It was only years—and many cucumber plants—later that I finally learned what I’d probably done wrong.

A brick path leads to a quaint potting shed
Plants have to be tough to thrive in this tough climate at the side of my house. Comfrey, hops, blueberry, thornless blackberry and, yes, mint, flank the path to my potting shed. All do well in part-shade, making them good candidates for this space.

The caveat to any “easy to grow” claim is that basic conditions have to be met, yet different plants have their own distinct needs—their own definition of “basic conditions.” “Easy” sun-loving plants will fail to fruit or succumb to mildew if planted in the shade. “Effortless” salad greens will wilt or crisp in the blazing sun. “Foolproof” cucumber will be unhappy grown in sterile potting mix without benefit of compost or fertilizer. Even mint—the ultimate fail-safe—will die if kept, root bound, in a too-small pot.

The good news is that failure leads to learning. Trial and error—lots of error—leads to fewer errors. Not every year will be a good gardening year. Not every sure-fire crop will thrive. But with enough mistakes, eventually you get to a place where those easiest-plant lists actually ring somewhat true—and at the very least, if you do kill something said to be “foolproof,” you’ve got a pretty good idea why.

Related posts:

Default ThumbnailThe best low-maintenance edibles: food growing for the time crunched Default ThumbnailGarden Tour: Marcelle’s bountiful balcony Default ThumbnailNew year’s resolutions for the garden Default ThumbnailOld friends, old gardens

Filed Under: Blogging, My garden Tagged With: Gardening 101, low maintenance, vegetable gardening

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Natalie @ The Write Marketer says

    May 10, 2020 at 4:39 pm

    I’m glad I’m not the only one who manages to kill “easy” plants! Lucky bamboo and mint seem to be the only plants I have any luck with. I’ve been trying to grow dill from seed for the last 3 years now. One year a couple of them actually grew! But they died before any of them reach an inch tall, poor things. Maybe this will be the year!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Primary Sidebar

My latest book

The bright, illustrated cover of Small-Space Vegetable Gardens
Small-Space Vegetable Gardens by Andrea Bellamy

newsletter

Subscribe to receive occasional email updates (I promise never to spam you!)

Reader Favourites

Round, cookie-dough-like balls of clay and seed

How to make seed balls

Colourful quinoa plants in bloom

Would you grow your own grains?

This proves it. Chickens are hot.

Categories

  • Annuals
  • Blogging
  • Bulbs and Tubers
  • Composting
  • Critters and wildlife
  • Events
  • Garden Design
  • Garden Tours
  • Gardens to Visit
  • Green Gardening & Living
  • Holiday
  • How To
  • Indoors
  • Inspiration
  • Miscellaneous
  • My garden
  • Outdoor Living
  • Pacific Northwest
  • Perennials
  • Ponds & Water Gardening
  • Raving and Whining
  • Resistance is fertile
  • Resources
  • Retail Therapy
  • Shrubs & Trees
  • Small-Space Vegetable Gardens
  • Sugar Snaps and Strawberries
  • Uncategorized
  • Veggies & Edibles
  • WTF?
  • Home
  • About

Copyright © 2023 · Infinity Pro on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in