About 2 weeks ago I saw some aphids on my tomato plants there were alot. So I decided to make some organic pest spray to save money and not have to go to the store.I looked on the web and found a recipe made it and sprayed all the plants.Well the recipe called for soap water and oil to make it stick. I know when I was making it 1 cup oil seemed alot but on I went.Two days later some of the leaves were turning black Oh no I thought I'm cooking my poor plants! Well the aphids are gone and thanks to some rain and a little trimming I may still get some sauce after all! What have your garden goofs been so I'm not all alone?

-- Nan (graf_nan@hotmail.com), July 23, 2001

Answers

I know I made a lot more garden goofs when I was just beginning, but I still make a lot of them even now. You live and learn. The biggest mistake, which I still make, is planting too many fun novelties, which often don't produce very much actual food, and that I don't have time to tend along with the rest of the garden. But novelties are fun! Another one that really sticks in my mind is the time I companion planted peas and onions. the peas grew and curled all over the onions and dragged them down to the ground. I think we still got a crop, but it was a mess, hard to pick the peas, almost impossible to weed!

-- Rebekah (daniel@itss.net), July 23, 2001.

My gardening story is actually more the story of my lovely former spouse and her first efforts ever at having a garden our first summer at our first home.

When we were first married she had visions of being little mother earth and wanted to have tomato plants in the back yard. She tilled, planted, tended and staked. I put up a small fence to keep out the rabbits (our young Golden Retriever thought there were just "other puppies").

Well, all was going well and we had little green tomatoes. The first time my lovely former spouse found tomatoes almost ready to pick she was so excited. A day or two later when she went out to pick them, they were gone. We thought maybe one of our parents had taken us up on our invitation to "come over anytime and pick whatever you'd like." A couple phone calls proved that not to have been the case. We had no idea where the tomatoes had gone.

Worse, this happened every single time. Needless to say, my lovely former spouse was not happy. She was certain someone was coming into our yard under cover of darkness and pilfering her tomatoes. I was on the verge of being assigned as the night shift garden guard.

On the very morning of what was to be the first night of this graveyard shift assignment, as I'm hearing how this is the only way we'll ever know what's going on, she calls our Golden in from her morning constitutional only to have her appear at our back door with a tomato plant hanging across her snout. Yes, the culprit was our own tomato snarfing Golden Retriever!

While I had built the little fence high enough to keep out those "other puppies," I had neglected to build it high enough to keep her from leaning over and helping herself. ;o)

-- Gary in Indiana (gk6854@aol.com), July 23, 2001.

My biggest goof is this year. I had moved all my compost into the bed and was off to a good start. Then my husband threw some fertilizer in the bed when he did the lawn. He thought he was helping , but he forgot that he bought weed & feed instead of plain fertilezer!!OOOPS!!!!!!

-- connie in nm (karrellewis@aol.com), July 24, 2001.