At this point in the game, if you’re growing from seed, you’re either well on your way to success or you’re having some problems. If you’re in that latter group, this one’s for you!
I don’t really believe in the whole “green thumb” idealism. Truly, anyone who sets out to learn how to grow plants can learn how to grow plants. But, what you might not have realized is that growing is a skillset that you have to develop. Growing also requires your attention. We say it a lot around here, but growing and gardening can be hard.
That’s one of the reasons we spend 20-30 minutes, every day, writing these posts. It’s also why we have a whole back catalog of articles we’ve written that demonstrate how we do stuff, how we’ve solved various problems and also provide depth about our reasonings. One such article (plus a video we did this year) is on common germination and early plant growth problems, which you’ll find linked down below.
There are a ton of things that can go wrong when you’re growing from seed. Some are easily within your control and some are not. But, it’s usually the things that are within our control that are going to cause us the most problems. Most of these issues can be boiled down to nine or ten different things.
If you are having problems, it’s important to analyze them and try to figure out what’s wrong. If the soil looks too wet, it’s probably too wet. If you just did something to your plants and they look terrible, it’s probably related. If your plants are getting leggy and falling over, it’s your light and not your green thumb. If it’s just not working for you, it’s not you, it’s something about your environment or how you’re doing it.
One of the problems you might have encountered is that there seems to be so many ways of doing things that it’s hard to know what’s right. That’s because you can take many paths to get to the same goal when growing! There isn’t just one right way and the path of learning is to find your own way. It’s not something you figure out on your first swipe! We’ve been at this stuff for decades and we’re still learning!
Lastly, we’ll remind you that our DM’s are open. A lot of folks may be shy about commenting publicly when they’re struggling. We’re always willing to help people learn how to grow, both public and private. Good luck out there, fellow Frosty Gardeners!
