“K now your limitations.” Those three words were said to me a few months ago when I was visiting my old friend Catriona in Sydney. If anyone else had said this to me I would have told them to shut up, but coming from her, they hit home, hard and fast.
We were talking about gardening. I was describing what was probably my worst summer in terms of growing vegetables. My tomatoes didn’t thrive, my beans died, my cauliflower sulked and produced a few tiny heads… the list goes on.
Part of the problem is that where I live in the Hokianga, it is very dry in summer and prone to drought. As we are on tank water, I’m not inclined to water too often in case I need that water in March and so my plants sulk and then are prone to bugs and viruses. When you garden organically, you know that the healthier the plant, the less likely it is to succumb to pests.
The other part of the problem is that I’m just not a very good gardener. Something I was loathe to accept about myself, but as I talked to my old friend I slowly realised that was the case.
