If things don’t turn out as you planned, savor the lessons learned and try something new next time.

I hope Katie Marlow — the author of that tip — doesn’t mind me making a slight alteration. It shouldn’t be “if things don’t turn out…” it should be “When things don’t turn out…” Gardening — like most things in nature — is a very humbling hobby. I’m not a master gardener, but I would venture to guess that even quite seasoned gardeners learn new things each year. Everyone makes mistakes. Instead of trying to be perfect, it’s better for your sanity to embrace mistakes as opportunities to learn.

When you kill a plant, you’ve only failed if you didn’t learn anything about how to care for that plant in future (even if what you learned is that you aren’t willing to spend hours upon hours babying that particular plant and don’t want to grow it anymore). I know that sounds like a variation of a cheesy quote one of your middle school teachers had on the bulletin board, but as the daughter of a teacher who loves inspirational quotes, I can attest that sometimes those sayings are true!

Beyond just gardening skills, I can’t tell you how much I have learned about myself through gardening, and how many opportunities gardening has provided me to be a better person. I’ve made plenty of mistakes that allowed me to work on being more patient, less impulsive and more steadfast (just to name a few personality traits!). I didn’t set out to learn patience through gardening, but the reflection made after planting some bulbs too early (and the problems that resulted there from) certainly had that net effect.

If you embrace the idea that being a perfect gardener is not possible, you’ll be happier and learn a lot about gardening and yourself in the process.

Other Master Gardener Tips:

• Using a Color Wheel to Choose Flowers for Your Garden
• Lighter Pots, Less Soil Wasted and a Way to Recycle Plastic Bottles

First, I want to apologize for not responding to comments and emails as quickly as I normally do. I do have an excuse. As the title of this post suggests, I’ve been busy preparing to launch a new blog about travel literature, one of my favorite genres of books. The new blog is called Paperback Traveler.

Since container gardening and travel literature rarely cross paths, I don’t intend to bombard you with links and talk of my other blog. But, on the off chance that any of you like books about foreign countries, I thought I would mention it. I hope to see you guys over there!

/talk of travel lit

Stay tuned for another master gardener tip later this afternoon. Also, check out the first installment of an interesting series about seeds over at InvisibleBees.com.

I am talking about a website called My Folia. If you’ve ever thought “I wish I could remember which one of these 100 varieties of tomato seeds did really well last season” or “how long did it take my Zinnias to sprout from seed last season?” or “was it the seaweed extract or the worm castings that really made my bell pepper crop so huge?” then My Folia is for you. It is a super easy tool to use, and it only takes a few seconds to record all the details of your garden that you want to remember for later. My Folia integrates wonderfully with Picasa and Flickr so you can easily connect your photos with My Folia to keep a visual record as well.

Not only can you use it to record your own gardening experience, you can use My Folia to find other people growing the same things and learn from them as well. Or, if you’re a social butterfly, you can use My Folia to find gardening buddies who like growing the same things as you, who have a similar type of growing space (balcony, windowsill, 10 acre backyard, etc), or who garden in the same area of the world as you do. There is also a wonderful forum section to ask questions and discuss all things gardening.

If you have resolved to do a better job journaling about your garden this year, then definitely give My Folia a test drive. If you do sign up, add me as your buddy.

Related Posts:

• Gardening Resolutions
• Digital Gardening

I’d like to especially thank regular visitors like Gen of Northcoast Gardening, Louise of Buddy Garden Blog, Jen of Muddy Boot Dreams, Nancy of Soliloquy, Cindy of A Walk Down the Garden Path, TC of The Write Gardener, Alexa of Invisible Bees, Julie from A Succulent Life, Prue of Totally Inept Balcony Gardener (which isn’t true!) and Adriana of A Victory Home Garden. If I forgot someone, please accept my apologies! Thank you all for your tips, advice, encouragement and commiseration! Blogging has been a whole heck of a lot of fun for me, and I hope for you too.

If you’re bored and looking for something to read before you head off to a New Year’s party, here are the top five posts according to unique page views:

1. Need a little natural mosquito repellant? (35,134)
2. Container farming for beginners. (31,412)
3. Cats should eat cat food; keep your cats away from your plants with these simple tips. (1,275)
4. Balcony privacy was pretty popular. Part one. (1,237)
5. Part two. (883)

p.s. To all you lurkers out there, I hope you’ll pop in from time to time and leave a comment. I’d love to hear from you!

It seems as though Sarah generally liked the film but had a few critiques, one of which involved the driveway herb garden:

And, what if they don’t have tidy herb gardens lining their driveway, like Shira and Yuval, to add nutritious and tasty ingredients to spice up their somewhat bland foods?

The implication being (I think) that it isn’t possible for poor, urban food stamp users to grow their own herbs, or even better, their own fruits and vegetables. And certainly not on a serious budget. I have to say, I heartily disagree! I thought I would round up some of the posts I written about growing your own food without access to an in-ground garden or even very much room. Even a windowbox provides enough room to produce tomatoes, blueberries, herbs, and more.

Growing Your Own Food:

• A Cucumber Plant Made for Container Gardening
• A Great Guide for Growing Carrots in Pots
• Grow Your Own Food So Your Kids Will Eat Healthily
• Vegetables and Herbs You Can Plant in Late Fall
• Fruits, Vegetables and Herbs That a Beginner Can Grow Organically in a Container Garden
• Creating a Hanging Salad Bowl
• Dwarf Blueberry Varieties for Container Gardening
• Tiny Tomato Plants Great for Small Gardens

Frugal Gardening:

• Use Less Soil, Recycle Plastic Bottles and Get Lighter Pots
• How to Get More Plants for Free
• Free Seeds!
• Great Looking Pots for Pennies
• 10 Dirt Cheap Ways to Have a Rockin’ Balcony Garden
• Make Your Own Vegetable Wash

Before:

Note the pot in front and how nice the variegated aeonium looks.

Note the lush leaves in beautiful shades of chartreuse and plum.

After:

The aeonium rotted and the other succulents in this pot aren’t far behind.

Rain ripped all the leaves off my potato vine.

Yeah, it would be nice if my landlord installed some rain gutters.

I’m going on the record as having the following goals this year:

1. Do a better job of sticking to my fertilizing schedule.
2. Improve my gardening records kept on My Folia.
3. Eat/preserve/freeze everything I grow (this year I was unprepared for the size of my harvest at times and couldn’t eat all of food before it went bad).
4. Put pot feet under the rest of my pots (a few of them are missing their feet).

Last week, I posted about a tip to make choosing a color theme easier. This week, I’m posting tip #34: Use less soil in large containers by filling the bottom with crumpled plastic bottles.

Photo by Bright Tal

A big pot, with crumpled plastic bottles taking up some of the space dirt would normally take up, will weigh less, great if you need to move your pot or have weight restrictions on your balcony or rooftop. Such a pot will also require less dirt, so you won’t waste money on dirt that your plants won’t be using. Finally, and obviously, plastic bottles taking up space in the bottom of your pots means they’re not taking up space in a landfill.

I would crumple the plastic bottle and then put the cap back on to prevent dirt and water (and then bugs) from getting in the bottles, which would defeat the purpose of lightening the pot and reducing the amount of dirt needed.

I think there is one important caveat to this tip. It works best for tall pots where you plan on using plants with relatively shallow root systems. If you’re planting a tree or a tomato, or other plants that need all the dirt they can find, then skip the plastic bottles and fill the pot entirely with dirt.

Related Posts:

• Using a Color Wheel to Choose Flowers for Your Garden
• 10 Ways to be a Frugal Balcony Gardener
• Propagating Plants to Make More for Free!

Photo by annamatic3000

• Last Minute Gifts for Gardeners: Genevieve from North Coast Gardening has come up with a unique list of gifts for gardeners. Gen is a gardening coach and landscape designer, she wouldn’t steer you wrong!
• Handmade Gifts for Gardeners: If you’re a handmade kind of person, but don’t have enough time to DIY this season, check out Gayla of You Grow Girl’s list.
• 12 Days of Gardening Gifts: Cindy over at Walk Down the Garden Path has been posting a gift idea a day for six days thus far. Be sure to check back regularly to see the rest of her suggestions.
• Christmas List for the Beginning Gardener: Avid gardener and journalist Mary Ann at Idaho Gardener has a thoughtful list of nice gifts for beginners, although I suspect there are a number of items on her list a more seasoned gardener would appreciate too.
• Music to Garden To: Gayla also came up with this list of music she thinks would be great to stick on your mp3 player and listen to while out among your plants. I like this idea a lot. Mix tapes are a dying art, and a well done playlist is worth way more than the combined cost of the CDs.