How to Celebrate Your Work-In-Progress Garden (Even If It Isn’t “Insta-Ready”)

I’ve spent five years with my humble backyard city garden. Growing your own flowers for market and learning how to start a garden is messy business. After clearing construction rubble, fighting (and resigning myself to) cracking clay soil, trying with minimal success to encourage grass to grow, and quite a few mishaps along the way I’ve probably forgotten about, my garden has been picture-perfect about 2% of the time.

But, I love it, and I’m sure you love yours, too. Whether you have a few acres dedicated to growing flowers or a tiny kitchen garden in porch pots, the work of growing things is rewarding. And it’s worth sharing even if you have slugs or swamps or cosmos that recently gave up the ghost because Oklahoma is hot, y’all.

I am all for beautiful flower photos, and well-kept beds are very pleasing to the eye. Let’s keep doing that and also share the in-between. Here’s what I’ve learned trying to do that in my own urban plot.

1. Make experiments, not failures.

Not everything you try is going to work. Give yourself grace to try and fail, and take good notes so your future self doesn’t have to try to remember everything that happened last season.

Dedicate some space just for experimenting, especially when you’re growing for profit, so you minimize unpleasant surprises. I find pictures are extremely helpful as a reminder of how certain plants fared in the past (or whether that corner spot gets any sun in October).

2. Congratulate yourself on lessons learned

Rather than beating yourself up over blooms that never made it or for stubbornly attempting to grow a variety in a location it’s not suited for, focus on what you’ve learned. Kudos to you for being someone who learns from mistakes!

Keep notes, though, so you don’t repeat things that don’t work from year to year. I planted my tomatoes right smack in the spot where they’ll get the most sun and the least shade throughout the day, and Oklahoma’s 100-degree summers are scorching their leaves. But a couple of years ago, they grew much more happily in a slightly more shaded part of the yard. So next year I’ll be growing them in pots that I can place nearer to my house to give them a little bit of shade. They might like the sun, but not that much!

3. Learn to love garden planning

I have a love/hate relationship with planning my beds. But the years that I put more thought into the planning, the better the entire growing season goes. When you give yourself enough time to prepare, you can get things in the ground early enough, adjust as needed if some “experiments” don’t work out, plus spend some wonderfully cozy time in the dead of winter dreaming about how amazing your garden will be. Or most recently, choose fall crops imagining what it must feel like to be slightly chilly. I can’t remember.

4. Find ways to get outside, be present, and enjoy the space you have

In my small area, the largest bed I have is dedicated to trying new things. However, it’s also smack in the middle of my backyard and impossible to hide from anyone who spends time there.

Instead of worrying about whether it looks tidy or productive enough, I try to proactively talk to my guests about what’s working and what isn’t. Here’s where the okra’s coming in, here’s the row I just sowed beets in, and here’s what it looks like when slugs ravage your strawberries. I show it off, even when it’s not “worth” showing off because I think there’s huge value in sharing the mundane parts of life with others.

I also find it’s really helpful to spend time being slow in the garden—usually when watering or mindlessly weeding—or just sitting in a nearby chair and reading. It makes space for me to enjoy the in-between, not only when things are in bloom or producing fruit.

Gardening reminds me that for all the planning and note-taking and list-making, it’s worthwhile to simply be present. I hope you can allow yourself soon, in whatever space you have, to do the same.