to water, or not to water
This post is for me 365 days from now. A friendly reminder to my neurotic self that worrying about whether to water, or not water the seedlings is completely unnecessary.
As a perfectionist that likes following rules, researching, and doing everything right the first time it’s really baffling to me that I enjoy gardening at all. I was thinking about that sentiment the other day and came to a conclusion that I think makes sense. In everyday life, I feel as though I can have control over a situation because I’m part of the equation and I can make educated, thoughtful decisions to gain a positive outcome. Goodness knows that’s not always a reality and when things don’t go my way, it’s a hard pill to swallow.
When it comes to gardening, I know I’m part of the equation but I also recognize the extremely tiny part that I play. Sure, I’m planting, watering, fertilizing, and eventually planting them in the ground but so much of their success relies solely on the strength and vitality of the seed itself. That, my friends, has nothing to do with me.
If that seed happened to be a volunteer instead of being coddled by me indoors in the dead of winter, it would potentially face a lot of obstacles before even sprouting it’s first true set of leaves. It could encounter a potential lack, or more likely surplus, of water. Birds, squirrels, or bugs could decide it would make a nice snack. My point is, I can pretend like growing healthy plants that produce a nice bounty is my success but it really isn’t. I’m able to enjoy the process knowing that I’m merely a “helper” in the grand scheme of things and my involvement has little to do with whether those seedlings would succeed, or potentially fail, on their own. So, I do what I can to assist their growth and find pleasure in coddling them for those few short weeks that they spend under lights in our basement (I swear nothing illegal is going on neighbors).
Don’t get me wrong, there is still a good deal of Googling, stressing that I’m doing it all wrong, and worrying that we will end up with more weeds than healthy plants in the garden. I chalk that up to loving the process so much that I don’t want it to end.
There’s no perfect equation for how often, when, or how you should water seedlings. Every gardener will tell you something different and what they tell you often varies depending on how you’re implementing several other factors. So, I’ll share my personal gardening philosophy that I’m slowly learning to implement into my everyday life as well. Educate yourself, do what you can with what you have with good intentions, and then pray. Most of the time you end up with something beautiful and delicious to be proud of but if not, at least you learned that worrying about it wouldn’t have changed the outcome.
And, it’s always better to under water than over water :) Until next time y’all!
-cate
