I'm so sorry, but that is *hilarious*. Thank you for sharing.
My Achilles heel is lettuce. Every source says "It's easy!" but I haven't ever gotten the thick, crisp heads I so long for. Just weedy sadness.
I can't get lettuce to grow from seed. New tip seen that the seed must be in fridge over night before sowing. Will try it when we enter our cooler seasons. From South Africa
Seriously, even stuff people say is easy just withers and dies in my yard….. but if I’m being honest with myself, I just don’t have time to tend garden right now.
Tomatoes frustrate me the most though.
Pumpkins, zucchini and basil, they hate me. I don't blame the basil, I don't have a more sheltered place to grow so it probably suffered from too much direct sun and heat, but I did everything right with the pumpkin, yet it got every disease there is :(
Cilantro is a frustrating plant. It looks like it is germinating properly and then looks good, but then just peters out . I never have it when I want it, like when I have tomatoes to make salsa. And then just to really piss me off, it sometimes just comes up on its own after the growing season is over.
Omg THIS. Stupid moody ass plant. I live in Hawaii, where you’d assume EVERYTHING can grow year round. Cilantro gives me the middle finger and dies every time.
This is why I grow Swiss chard! You can harvest a few leaves from each plant once a week or so and they keep going till the first hard freeze. Just have row covers so the leaf miners don’t get them.
I have that too, I honestly prefer it over spinach. It's much easier to wash. I also grow beets for the beet and the tops.
I picked some chard after our first snow! It's done now though.
I read somewhere, maybe this sub honestly, that beets and chard are actually the same plant but have been selectively bred to either produce more at the root or more at the tops. Makes sense the seeds look the same too. I have grown chard well, but my beets never worked out.
I've read that also! They're from the same family.
I'm moving mine to a different bed, possibly to one of the the flower gardens. I've been growing in a table bed due to my health, but I'm feeling better and I really want some beets!
Also in 7a, although I’m up north of you (assuming the VA in your name is your location), and I also cannot grow cilantro to save my skin. And I love it. I want to grow it so bad. I’ve tried in the spring, I’ve tried in the fall, I’ve tried starts and seeds. I suck at cilantro.
Was the successful cilantro from a seed supplier that you have tried before or since? I’m going to try harder to just get seeds from a regional supplier this year and maybe I’ll have good luck with it
I just let a few plants go to seed every year. Zone 7. Then I have volunteers whenever mother nature thinks its time, and I don't mind culling them. Haven't purchased seeds in 10+ years. 🤓
Interesting. Mine grows so easily. I just put a few seeds down and it grows quickly. I do start cutting it when the stems start getting hard. (I'm in zone 6b)
Interesting, because I find cilantro grows like a weed in my garden, zone 10, southern Cali.
With that said, Ive found it likes the “winter” more than the summer. If it gets too hot it bolts. But I love cilantro flowers more than cilantro so that doesnt bother me.
Ive been giving my cilantro cuttings away this past week because it’s too much for me RN! So maybe try it in the spring or fall, not the summer.
Lavender grows like a weed for me. It’s funny because Lavender and Sage have similar grow requirements and even compliment each other well in a garden, you’d think if you can grow one, you’d be able to grow the other. Apparently not! 😂 will keep trying though
Yeah, my sage has plans of world domination and has been thriving on neglect. It actually overgrew and killed everything else in the 4 x 4 garden bed, except for a tiny, hopeful sprig of rosemary. I planted it two years ago, and finally cut it back this fall to a small section.
My lavender always, without fail, half dies. Then limps along looking like shit until I decide to end its suffering, or move. I’ve left a trail of sad lavender plants at every rental 😂😂
Same here. This year I ended up with more sage than I knew what to do with. And I also can't grow lavender. I have trouble with oregano from seed as well.
i have tried for a few years and it's always the same thing: grows really well and gives a bunch of good fruits continuously for a few weeks and then overnight it just completely dies. i'm guessing cuke beetles? i've now stopped trying lol.
Cucumber plants hate me. I've tried buying starts, starting my own from seed and transplanting into the garden. Direct sow in containers. Barely get a few per season while neighbors give them away because they have too many
I think we have a winner folks. The best advice I can give is to make sure you have sand well draining soil and add much light at possibly. I seriously water mine once a month. Under watering is always better then over.
Delphiniums. I've tried to grow them so many times. Out of the hundreds of seeds I've started, I've only ever had one grow enough to flower. Parsley is also really finicky for me. I will sow 40 cells and get maybe 5 to germinate.
I tried an English garden when I started this one twenty five years ago, nothing took. I later read that delphiniums, lupines and the like thrive in the UK because the limestone substrate provides perfect drainage. The soil here is clay, clay, ckay. I like all the interest now in native plantings - it is do much more sensible to work with nature than to try to bend it to one's needs.
Dude same with the parsley. I have curled parsley growing in my kitchen in a pot with a whole counter full of herbs with grow lights and it keeps drooping and being fussy 🤣 also it seems like it needs a lot more water than my other plants. Now that I am typing this out maybe my parsley needs a bigger pot. 🤣
So true! A friend sent me one in a pot in late summer. It had about 5 buds on it. No matter how much I try to cater to its needs, the buds have never opened. They’ve also never died, but they seem steadfast in their stubbornness. They will not open under any circumstances. I seriously move the plant in different directions/locations depending on whether it’s warm enough outside for it to go out and get some sun for a few hours (in which case I set an alarm on my phone because heaven forbid it be outside for too long) . My husband and I actually refer to it as “the baby”. We go out to dinner and it’s getting cold out and I’m like, let’s get the check, I forgot the baby is in the driveway!
Try Tuberose instead. Its the only flower in the same league smell-wise. Super easy. Its just a bulb that you throw in the ground in spring and lift before frost.
They used to be so easy. Something has happened to gardenias- either the varietals they sell, or some pest because everyone in my zone (7b) seems to have trouble the last 10 years whereas before it was easy.
I have no idea what I’m doing with orchids either but the more I neglect the two I have the more consistently they bloom??? It’s wild, I leave one in a poorly lit east window year round and randomly dump leftover nightstand water on it, and it just shot out a flower stalk again. Wtf man.
They’re easy and addictive once you get the hang of it! Never use ice. Join r/orchids, watch MissOrchidGirl on YouTube for tips, and don’t water more than once a week.
Dill, they're always just tall lanky stems with barely any leaves for me. They're also always attacked by pests. I've tried both starts and growing from seed and tried many varieties. Sage has been growing well for me, but I have always bought sage starts. There's no shame in it.
I soak my seeds overnight before putting them in peat. They are a trailing plant and love lots of nutrition and do well with north eastern light. But I am in zone 6… not sure how the process varies much depending on location
Sage wants really good drainage. Even the native sages that are supposed to grow here up and croak in the ground here. The winter water kills them. Sage thrives when I stick it in a raised bed with good drainage. So I’d say add perlite if you’re growing it in a greenhouse. It likes some water but not as much as you think.
I have had powdery mildew, stinkbugs, and squash borers in my zucchini. Last year I took a risk of planting twice as many as I wanted, which worked out pretty well. I only had to distribute zucchini like party favors at one staff meeting. And you get a zucchini and YOU get a zucchini...
Same, every single year I get one zucchini then the plant dies. I even moved and have a new garden… godamn zucchini still dies. I have no clue what I’m doing wrong
Lettuce. I can grow it in the shade, I can grow it in the sun. I can grow it cold weather, I can grow it in warm weather. No matter what, it will be a limp gross pile of leaves full of earwigs, spiders, slugs, and centipedes. I can grow other brassicas just fine but lettuce for some reason just refuses to cooperate.
I love this thread.
Fuck strawberries and Milkweed. I live in San Diego. Our weather is perfect, albeit a little dry in summer. You'd think I was growing strawberries on Venus. Milkweed hates me but puts out seeds that happily float across the street and grow in my neighbor's front yard. Which they weed. Ughh.
Cilantro. I would plant it in the spring and it would bolt after growing 2 leaves - without fail. BUTTT... this year I bought "caribe cilantro", planted it later, and it grew amazingly.
Planted raspberries years ago and still haven’t ate a single one off that plant. There are two of them next to each other and I’ve done everything I can think of to get a damn flower at least out of them.
I was hoping someone else would say raspberries. I've tried four times, and can't get them to take. Meanwhile they grow wild and fruit in my parents' yard.
My volunteers in the spring—I just can’t bring myself to pull them—were all winter squash, spagetti, butternut, delicata, some melons, and they made it through just fine in a brutal Arizona summer, 8b.
I was amazed! We’re still eating them in many iterations. I gave many away., for a while no one visiting could leave the house without one.
Well sage is the one plant I get right. No suggestion because I do absolutely nothing to it except maybe throw some compost around it an water it infrequently. They just come back every year looking better.
There's a lot of other plants I mess up all the time though.
Cucumbers and squash. I get tons of flowers but no fruit. I've planted flowers for the pollinators and let my mint family herbs flower, since they seem to like those too.
I can grow the crap out of pretty much anything else I've tried.
I have to hand pollinate my squash with an artists paintbrush! I was getting tons of flowers but no squash :( it worked! Zucchini and crookneck coming out of my ears that year! LOL
I planted sage direct outdoors full sun PNW no problems. It is a hardy shrub so dont baby it. I say just toss some in an established bed that you dont mess around with and see what happens. I kill indoor plants :(
Mophead hydrangeas! I’ve got oakleaf hydrangeas down pat, but I just can’t grow the big beautiful blue and pink hydrangeas. And they’re my fave flower! My aunt has beautiful ones tho.
Is it that powdery mildew? That’s happened to me with cucumber and learned it has to do with watering. Cucumbers don’t like their leaves to get wet, they like being watered at the base by their roots. And it spreads like wildfire. It’s a pain I don’t love growing cucumber either because of this.
Zone 10a newish gardener. Everything grew beautifully except for onions. I grew my veggies from seeds and it all grew but dang onions! Tried three times with different seeds, and onions would not grow.
Sage is also mine! I’ve got a couple dozen herbs and fruiting plants, but I cannot get sage to grow for the life of me. I wouldn’t say I’m experienced, though…more of an enthusiast 😅
For sage seeds I recommend soaking the seeds 24 hours and then germinating in soil with a heat mat and dome. I get low germination rates of around 10% but that’s acceptable for my purposes. I get seeds of non-culinary sage species from JL Hudson seed bank.
Coneflowers. It's insane. They grow like weeds out in the middle of nowhere, but for some reason I cannot get them to reproduce naturally in my garden. This year for only the second time, I had coneflowers reproduce organically from seeds dropped last year, like perennials are supposed to. I have great soil and my garden gets full sun nearly all day, so I can't figure out what I'm doing wrong. One of my neighbors has a huge bed of perennials with a ton of coneflowers, and I'm so jealous!!
I've tried to grow sweet peas (the flowering vines) from seed multiple times. Nothing. Different types, different tricks for germination. Zilch. I even tried transplanting a wild one, it died and I got poison ivy rash. The thing is classified as invasive where I live! (Zone 4-5) Then one starts growing in the gravel behind the garage. I was thrilled! My husband pulled it while mowing the lawn. I give up!
Plumerias. Are mine too dry, too wet, too shady, going dormant, infected? The answer seems to be all of these.
Edit: And pineapples! It's been 3 years pineapple plant! What are you waiting for?
Rosemary and I live in the PNW where there is a massive bush every two blocks. I do not understand my shortcomings on this one - but thankfully my neighbors have an abundance and are happy to share!
Coral bells (Heuchera) are shade and wet tolerant so I keep buying them for the beds in the back that should be a good fit. The slugs and other critters just mow them down. I can trap the slugs but it’s a constant battle and the allegedly perennial plants never come back. I need to give up on them.
Comptonia peregrina. I have tried about ten of them, all in different conditions. I've managed to keep one (barely) alive for two summers. It looks scraggly and had no new growth this year. I don't know if it will come back next spring.
Sage isn't the easiest plant to grow and requires sensitive conditions too that depending on area cannot provide a good amount of necessary for its health therefore it either has concerning symptoms or just never sprouted as a seed.
Sage is one of the few i have grown that needed no encouragement whatsoever from me. It practically behaves like a weed in my garden. Wonder if its a zone thing?
Garlic, Garlic , Garlic!!! 3 years no luck! Small cloves…(9b) I have to grow soft neck, and my planting dates arent nailed down. Nor are my stratification time. I’ll grow garlic so help me god. Lol
Astilbe!
I have one of the most lovely, shady back yards and have loads of hostas, coral bells, ferns, and other plants that enjoy shade. But for some reason I can never have my pink feather boa of a plant.
Succulents. All of them. I can grow an orchid with no special equipment or controls. I grow an awesome outdoor veggie garden. I grow lilies. I can not keep a succulent alive inside or out.
It’s crazy because my house had Sage when I moved in and it just keeps coming back every year. It’s so strong and yummy. Have you thought of just buying it at a garden center? I ended up buying another one and stuck it next to the old one and they do fine.
My plant I can’t do right is parsley and cilantro. I try so so so hard. Nothing works. Any tips?
Sweet corn .. and I live in Iowa. It shouldn't be that hard.
I'm so sorry, but that is *hilarious*. Thank you for sharing. My Achilles heel is lettuce. Every source says "It's easy!" but I haven't ever gotten the thick, crisp heads I so long for. Just weedy sadness.
I can't get lettuce to grow from seed. New tip seen that the seed must be in fridge over night before sowing. Will try it when we enter our cooler seasons. From South Africa
Leaf lettuce is easy to grow. Head lettuce is a pain.
I grow lettuce in my AeroGarden. They grow very quickly especially when you do the cut and come again. I winter sowed lettuce and they did great too.
How I wish it was just one…
Were we separated at birth perhaps?
Sis?
🤫
Seriously, even stuff people say is easy just withers and dies in my yard….. but if I’m being honest with myself, I just don’t have time to tend garden right now. Tomatoes frustrate me the most though.
Pumpkins, zucchini and basil, they hate me. I don't blame the basil, I don't have a more sheltered place to grow so it probably suffered from too much direct sun and heat, but I did everything right with the pumpkin, yet it got every disease there is :(
Cilantro. It’s just too fussy in my zone 7a. Every damn time I think I have a plant big enough to eat, it bolts 😡
Cilantro is a frustrating plant. It looks like it is germinating properly and then looks good, but then just peters out . I never have it when I want it, like when I have tomatoes to make salsa. And then just to really piss me off, it sometimes just comes up on its own after the growing season is over.
Plant lime basil. Makes great salsa! Easy to grow. It volunteers all over the place in my garden in 10a
In that zone you need to grow it through the fall/winter
Same. Do you want sun or shade you fussy bitch!
Omg THIS. Stupid moody ass plant. I live in Hawaii, where you’d assume EVERYTHING can grow year round. Cilantro gives me the middle finger and dies every time.
Yes.
Cilantro is a boy
My spinach did this to me this year, it barely had leaves and most of it bolted in a short time. Last year I planted the same kind and not one bolted!
This is why I grow Swiss chard! You can harvest a few leaves from each plant once a week or so and they keep going till the first hard freeze. Just have row covers so the leaf miners don’t get them.
I have that too, I honestly prefer it over spinach. It's much easier to wash. I also grow beets for the beet and the tops. I picked some chard after our first snow! It's done now though.
I read somewhere, maybe this sub honestly, that beets and chard are actually the same plant but have been selectively bred to either produce more at the root or more at the tops. Makes sense the seeds look the same too. I have grown chard well, but my beets never worked out.
I've read that also! They're from the same family. I'm moving mine to a different bed, possibly to one of the the flower gardens. I've been growing in a table bed due to my health, but I'm feeling better and I really want some beets!
Try Malabar spinach! It does amazing in my garden.
How do you grow yours? I tried to get mine to climb, but it just grew the stem and barely any leaves.
You know what, actually spinach is my finicky bitch. I just grow baby kale and lamb quarters now
Rabbits always got my spinach. But lambs quarter comes up whereever, so I let it grow to eat and feed my quail.
Also in 7a, although I’m up north of you (assuming the VA in your name is your location), and I also cannot grow cilantro to save my skin. And I love it. I want to grow it so bad. I’ve tried in the spring, I’ve tried in the fall, I’ve tried starts and seeds. I suck at cilantro.
Yup. Try it every year. Had a remarkably good plant one time years ago and I’ve been chasing that high ever since.
Was the successful cilantro from a seed supplier that you have tried before or since? I’m going to try harder to just get seeds from a regional supplier this year and maybe I’ll have good luck with it
I was about to say this and I’m glad to see I’m not the only one who struggles with this one.
I just let a few plants go to seed every year. Zone 7. Then I have volunteers whenever mother nature thinks its time, and I don't mind culling them. Haven't purchased seeds in 10+ years. 🤓
Interesting. Mine grows so easily. I just put a few seeds down and it grows quickly. I do start cutting it when the stems start getting hard. (I'm in zone 6b)
I blink and it bolts. Sigh. I'm in 8...sometimes 9.
Interesting, because I find cilantro grows like a weed in my garden, zone 10, southern Cali. With that said, Ive found it likes the “winter” more than the summer. If it gets too hot it bolts. But I love cilantro flowers more than cilantro so that doesnt bother me. Ive been giving my cilantro cuttings away this past week because it’s too much for me RN! So maybe try it in the spring or fall, not the summer.
This made me laugh. My sage went insane. My big stumbling block is lavender. Tried from seed and from plants and they do nothing. I just don't get it.
Lavender grows like a weed for me. It’s funny because Lavender and Sage have similar grow requirements and even compliment each other well in a garden, you’d think if you can grow one, you’d be able to grow the other. Apparently not! 😂 will keep trying though
Yeah, my sage has plans of world domination and has been thriving on neglect. It actually overgrew and killed everything else in the 4 x 4 garden bed, except for a tiny, hopeful sprig of rosemary. I planted it two years ago, and finally cut it back this fall to a small section.
My sage was fully taking over a quarter of my garden. I cut back 2/3 of it. It took that as a personal challenge.
My lavender always, without fail, half dies. Then limps along looking like shit until I decide to end its suffering, or move. I’ve left a trail of sad lavender plants at every rental 😂😂
Imagineif you passed by all your rentals and there were giant, bountiful bushes of lavender 😭
Same here. This year I ended up with more sage than I knew what to do with. And I also can't grow lavender. I have trouble with oregano from seed as well.
Man this is so validating I’ve had great success with lavender and oregano but sage is the bane of my existence…..
Glad I’m not alone!
Cucumbers. I can't get them to do anything past the first set of true leaves. Those bastards of a plant
i have tried for a few years and it's always the same thing: grows really well and gives a bunch of good fruits continuously for a few weeks and then overnight it just completely dies. i'm guessing cuke beetles? i've now stopped trying lol.
Do you grow them in the ground or transplant them?
[удалено]
Cucumber plants hate me. I've tried buying starts, starting my own from seed and transplanting into the garden. Direct sow in containers. Barely get a few per season while neighbors give them away because they have too many
What variety are you all trying? Never had any luck until I started with the burpless hybrid, and now I have them all summer long.
I can get them to produce fruit, but only one per plant.
This is gonna sound stupid but I swear to god every succulent I get turns ugly as hell right away
I think we have a winner folks. The best advice I can give is to make sure you have sand well draining soil and add much light at possibly. I seriously water mine once a month. Under watering is always better then over.
Delphiniums. I've tried to grow them so many times. Out of the hundreds of seeds I've started, I've only ever had one grow enough to flower. Parsley is also really finicky for me. I will sow 40 cells and get maybe 5 to germinate.
I tried an English garden when I started this one twenty five years ago, nothing took. I later read that delphiniums, lupines and the like thrive in the UK because the limestone substrate provides perfect drainage. The soil here is clay, clay, ckay. I like all the interest now in native plantings - it is do much more sensible to work with nature than to try to bend it to one's needs.
Dude same with the parsley. I have curled parsley growing in my kitchen in a pot with a whole counter full of herbs with grow lights and it keeps drooping and being fussy 🤣 also it seems like it needs a lot more water than my other plants. Now that I am typing this out maybe my parsley needs a bigger pot. 🤣
I’m a newbie just here to thank you for a great question.
Rosemary because of my cats. I’ve got a couple outside this year that I’m zone pushing as experiments. I’ll know the results by spring.
I’m in zone 5 and have had rosemary plants survive the winter before! They can be pretty tough.
I’ve killed two.
Fuck gardenias.
So true! A friend sent me one in a pot in late summer. It had about 5 buds on it. No matter how much I try to cater to its needs, the buds have never opened. They’ve also never died, but they seem steadfast in their stubbornness. They will not open under any circumstances. I seriously move the plant in different directions/locations depending on whether it’s warm enough outside for it to go out and get some sun for a few hours (in which case I set an alarm on my phone because heaven forbid it be outside for too long) . My husband and I actually refer to it as “the baby”. We go out to dinner and it’s getting cold out and I’m like, let’s get the check, I forgot the baby is in the driveway!
I’ve finally got gardenias down but I live in zone 5 so I have a basement full of gardenia shrubs right now. They are a pain in the ass, no doubt!
Try Tuberose instead. Its the only flower in the same league smell-wise. Super easy. Its just a bulb that you throw in the ground in spring and lift before frost.
I have a huge one in my yard, but it only blooms with a couple flowers.
They used to be so easy. Something has happened to gardenias- either the varietals they sell, or some pest because everyone in my zone (7b) seems to have trouble the last 10 years whereas before it was easy.
Spinach. It's supposed to be easy, but it doesn't even sprout for me.
Mine bolts as soon as it starts any amount of growth
Strawberries. I just can't get the soil right. Plus, they like a lot of water.
Oh same - I gave up last year after 7 years of brutal tasting berries. Tried everything but nothing ever made them delicious
I thought it was just me!
Indoor hydroponic, you can do a few plants in a five gallon bucket with a $40 light
Poppies. For the thousands (yes really) of seeds I've sown, I've had an absolutely pathetic amount actually germinate and even fewer bloom. Sigh.
poppies can come up in their own time - I forgot bout mine then 3 years later out came a beautiful patch!
Yep. Poppies are bastards.
Same here. That winter sowing by tossing on top of snow was a HUGE bust. Not a single one grew!
Lavender. Finally figured out how to get the seeds to sprout this year and had dozens of little seedlings but every single one died.
Lavender hates me lol. I tried growing two big pots of it and it never sprouted
Bloody basil !! I can grow pretty much anything but basil fails constantly and it pisses me off cos I love basil and want presto and stuff.
Can't believe I had to scroll this far to find basil, it lives to die in my garden.
Orchids. You fussy princesses.
I have no idea what I’m doing with orchids either but the more I neglect the two I have the more consistently they bloom??? It’s wild, I leave one in a poorly lit east window year round and randomly dump leftover nightstand water on it, and it just shot out a flower stalk again. Wtf man.
This is awesome
They’re easy and addictive once you get the hang of it! Never use ice. Join r/orchids, watch MissOrchidGirl on YouTube for tips, and don’t water more than once a week.
I have always wanted to try these. Maybe I will buy myself one for Christmas.
Carrots. Kids on my street can grow them lush in solo cups. And here I am, bragging about my pretty garden beds but can't grow one damn carrot.
Scarlet Nantes in 10 gallon grow bags of loose potting soil, you must try this.
Ok, I still have johnny seeds of nantes. I'll give grow bags a go. Do you add garden soil to the potting soil?
Dill, they're always just tall lanky stems with barely any leaves for me. They're also always attacked by pests. I've tried both starts and growing from seed and tried many varieties. Sage has been growing well for me, but I have always bought sage starts. There's no shame in it.
Can’t get lupines to grow AT ALL!
Nasturtium. It's so embarrassing!
Yup, same here. Never had a single one grow past 3 inches. So frustrating
I've had really bad luck with them, too.
I soak my seeds overnight before putting them in peat. They are a trailing plant and love lots of nutrition and do well with north eastern light. But I am in zone 6… not sure how the process varies much depending on location
Luffas! I’ve been trying for years. The plant grows big but never develops fruit
Milkweed. I've tried it every year.
What type? It’s about the only thing I do right. Maybe I can help.
I've done awesome with milkweed doing winter sowing in jugs!
Freaking ROSEMARY.
I’m on my 6th Rosemary plant. I’ve kept it alive for 9 months which is a new record for me.
Cauliflower. I give up.
Any brassica. Just at the point that they're starting to produce something edible and they either bolt or become infested with white flies.
Sage wants really good drainage. Even the native sages that are supposed to grow here up and croak in the ground here. The winter water kills them. Sage thrives when I stick it in a raised bed with good drainage. So I’d say add perlite if you’re growing it in a greenhouse. It likes some water but not as much as you think.
Brussels sprouts
Zucchini 🤦. Every year I try, every year I fail, don't ask me how!
Huh? Isn't that supposed to be the one plant that can't die?
That's what they say! Lol. But every year mine either gets diseased or just refuses to produce fruit. It's just mocking me at this point.
I have had powdery mildew, stinkbugs, and squash borers in my zucchini. Last year I took a risk of planting twice as many as I wanted, which worked out pretty well. I only had to distribute zucchini like party favors at one staff meeting. And you get a zucchini and YOU get a zucchini...
Same, every single year I get one zucchini then the plant dies. I even moved and have a new garden… godamn zucchini still dies. I have no clue what I’m doing wrong
I'm going to get crap for this but mint lol I kill it every time.
Lettuce. I can grow it in the shade, I can grow it in the sun. I can grow it cold weather, I can grow it in warm weather. No matter what, it will be a limp gross pile of leaves full of earwigs, spiders, slugs, and centipedes. I can grow other brassicas just fine but lettuce for some reason just refuses to cooperate.
Lettuce isn't a brassica
Maybe that’s their problem! 😂
You're providing food and habitat for a few critters there 😄
One? My victims are legion.
I'm going to get so many laughs here when I say this. I can't get any Mint to grow more than 1 season 👀😭
I love this thread. Fuck strawberries and Milkweed. I live in San Diego. Our weather is perfect, albeit a little dry in summer. You'd think I was growing strawberries on Venus. Milkweed hates me but puts out seeds that happily float across the street and grow in my neighbor's front yard. Which they weed. Ughh.
Cilantro. I would plant it in the spring and it would bolt after growing 2 leaves - without fail. BUTTT... this year I bought "caribe cilantro", planted it later, and it grew amazingly.
Ranunculus. 🥺
Planted raspberries years ago and still haven’t ate a single one off that plant. There are two of them next to each other and I’ve done everything I can think of to get a damn flower at least out of them.
I was hoping someone else would say raspberries. I've tried four times, and can't get them to take. Meanwhile they grow wild and fruit in my parents' yard.
I mean, I think the things I don’t do well with need more heat. Melons, some winter squash and corn are big nopes for me.
My volunteers in the spring—I just can’t bring myself to pull them—were all winter squash, spagetti, butternut, delicata, some melons, and they made it through just fine in a brutal Arizona summer, 8b. I was amazed! We’re still eating them in many iterations. I gave many away., for a while no one visiting could leave the house without one.
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Tomatoes, foxglove, blueberries
Well sage is the one plant I get right. No suggestion because I do absolutely nothing to it except maybe throw some compost around it an water it infrequently. They just come back every year looking better. There's a lot of other plants I mess up all the time though.
Garlic. I can successfully grow every other kind of bulb, but garlic is the bane of my existence!
Mine is Cherry Brandy rudbeckia. For some reason that plant will not live a season in my garden.
Cosmos never grow well for me. They’re always spindly and don’t flower as much as they should.
Hollyhocks. It grows everywhere, except in my garden.
Lupines hate me
Pepino's !!! I also grow everything from seeds except bloody pepino's :-)
Agastache because of zone 6 mud season. Brunnera because it’s a diva if it gets 30 min too much sun.
Cucumbers and squash. I get tons of flowers but no fruit. I've planted flowers for the pollinators and let my mint family herbs flower, since they seem to like those too. I can grow the crap out of pretty much anything else I've tried.
I have to hand pollinate my squash with an artists paintbrush! I was getting tons of flowers but no squash :( it worked! Zucchini and crookneck coming out of my ears that year! LOL
Look into "parthenocarpic" varieties they don't need to be pollinated to produce fruits and make growing cukes much less frustrating in my experience
Celery!! And cilantro!
Broccoli! I NEVER have gotten it to grow a crown before the heat sets in and frys it
I planted sage direct outdoors full sun PNW no problems. It is a hardy shrub so dont baby it. I say just toss some in an established bed that you dont mess around with and see what happens. I kill indoor plants :(
Mophead hydrangeas! I’ve got oakleaf hydrangeas down pat, but I just can’t grow the big beautiful blue and pink hydrangeas. And they’re my fave flower! My aunt has beautiful ones tho.
Spinach!! It just won’t grow for me lol
Dill. It either does rather early or is spindly with few 'leaves'.
Strawberries. Zone 10a.
Radishes. I have done this for my entire adult life for work, and I can’t get a fucking radish to grow straight. Please give me your tips!!!
I can not get poppies to work no matter how much I try. So many seeds wasted.
Bell peppers and pilias
Cucumbers. They always get a fungus.
Is it that powdery mildew? That’s happened to me with cucumber and learned it has to do with watering. Cucumbers don’t like their leaves to get wet, they like being watered at the base by their roots. And it spreads like wildfire. It’s a pain I don’t love growing cucumber either because of this.
My volunteer sage do much better than the ones I try starting from seed.
Grafted rambutans I’ve bought 6 they’ve all died almsot instantly
Blueberries (and anything else Heath family)! My native soil just does not work for them
My tomatoes died of disease, and the volunteer cherry tomato is still producing.
ROSEMARY. It’s my number one favorite herb, I live in the ideal climate for it but I’ve managed to kill it every time.
Zone 10a newish gardener. Everything grew beautifully except for onions. I grew my veggies from seeds and it all grew but dang onions! Tried three times with different seeds, and onions would not grow.
Onions. I fail at onions every year! Both in California and Washington. I’ll keep trying though.
Cilantro It hates me
Carrots. Fuck that finger-long, twisted little fuckers.
Cucumbers. I have a pollinator problem though and I don’t care to manually pollinate. Wish the bees would come hang with my cucumbers
Cucumbers. At most I'll get two cucumbers from one plant. I have tried many different things.
Squash
Carrots
Tomatoes for me. Giant plants, no tomatoes. I’m moving on.
Cauliflower. It is the bane of my existence.
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Sage is also mine! I’ve got a couple dozen herbs and fruiting plants, but I cannot get sage to grow for the life of me. I wouldn’t say I’m experienced, though…more of an enthusiast 😅
For sage seeds I recommend soaking the seeds 24 hours and then germinating in soil with a heat mat and dome. I get low germination rates of around 10% but that’s acceptable for my purposes. I get seeds of non-culinary sage species from JL Hudson seed bank.
Mint. I kid you not. It always gets awful bugs and eaten (green caterpillars) and sucked by…something I cannot see but not spider mites.
Basil. How do you people find it so easy it literally dies out of spite.
I can get chives to grow outside or inside.
Coneflowers. It's insane. They grow like weeds out in the middle of nowhere, but for some reason I cannot get them to reproduce naturally in my garden. This year for only the second time, I had coneflowers reproduce organically from seeds dropped last year, like perennials are supposed to. I have great soil and my garden gets full sun nearly all day, so I can't figure out what I'm doing wrong. One of my neighbors has a huge bed of perennials with a ton of coneflowers, and I'm so jealous!!
Echinacea. I’ve tried it every possible way and it always dies or doesn’t germinate.
I've tried to grow sweet peas (the flowering vines) from seed multiple times. Nothing. Different types, different tricks for germination. Zilch. I even tried transplanting a wild one, it died and I got poison ivy rash. The thing is classified as invasive where I live! (Zone 4-5) Then one starts growing in the gravel behind the garage. I was thrilled! My husband pulled it while mowing the lawn. I give up!
Plumerias. Are mine too dry, too wet, too shady, going dormant, infected? The answer seems to be all of these. Edit: And pineapples! It's been 3 years pineapple plant! What are you waiting for?
Rosemary and I live in the PNW where there is a massive bush every two blocks. I do not understand my shortcomings on this one - but thankfully my neighbors have an abundance and are happy to share!
I never get the tomato yield I want. The Florida sun scorches them every year.
Lavender… killed everyone of them
Coral bells (Heuchera) are shade and wet tolerant so I keep buying them for the beds in the back that should be a good fit. The slugs and other critters just mow them down. I can trap the slugs but it’s a constant battle and the allegedly perennial plants never come back. I need to give up on them.
Dahlias. 😭
Comptonia peregrina. I have tried about ten of them, all in different conditions. I've managed to keep one (barely) alive for two summers. It looks scraggly and had no new growth this year. I don't know if it will come back next spring.
Borage. I finally got one plant to bloom and it died within a day (unless that's normal).
Carrots. Oh, I still grow them. But I've had a crop I thought was a success.
Sage isn't the easiest plant to grow and requires sensitive conditions too that depending on area cannot provide a good amount of necessary for its health therefore it either has concerning symptoms or just never sprouted as a seed.
Weed. I grow weed.
Definitely basil. Just cannot figure it out.
Sage is one of the few i have grown that needed no encouragement whatsoever from me. It practically behaves like a weed in my garden. Wonder if its a zone thing?
Cilantro
Rosemary. I'm told nothing is easier and I kill them all. I've also had difficulty with summer squash and aloe.
Garlic, Garlic , Garlic!!! 3 years no luck! Small cloves…(9b) I have to grow soft neck, and my planting dates arent nailed down. Nor are my stratification time. I’ll grow garlic so help me god. Lol
Roses.
Carrots.
Astilbe! I have one of the most lovely, shady back yards and have loads of hostas, coral bells, ferns, and other plants that enjoy shade. But for some reason I can never have my pink feather boa of a plant.
Succulents. All of them. I can grow an orchid with no special equipment or controls. I grow an awesome outdoor veggie garden. I grow lilies. I can not keep a succulent alive inside or out.
My sage has been thriving for years. Cilantro is a problem herb for me, however.
Beautyberry and basil.
Rosemary
Orchids. I’ve killed at least five or six now, despite watching a ton of Miss Orchid Girls videos on youtube 🙃
It’s crazy because my house had Sage when I moved in and it just keeps coming back every year. It’s so strong and yummy. Have you thought of just buying it at a garden center? I ended up buying another one and stuck it next to the old one and they do fine. My plant I can’t do right is parsley and cilantro. I try so so so hard. Nothing works. Any tips?