We Can't Change the Past and We Can't Control the Future

It doesn’t matter the season in the garden or in life, things happen that are totally out of our control. In the garden this could look like: your zinnias getting powdery mildew, your peonies blooming beautifully one day only for their heads to become so heavy with rain they fall to the ground the next, or maybe your daffodils, which are at the brink of blooming, getting plummeted by sleety snow in April.

Joseph and I have been gardening for decades and we are going into our 8th season of growing flowers professionally and yet, every year I have to re-learn shit happens. No matter how much I plan or think I have control over a situation, sometimes things just go awry.

Last week we moved all our snapdragon seedlings outside into the unheated hoop house.

If you’re not familiar, a hoop house is very similar to a greenhouse. For us the hoop house is the in-between step between indoor growing and hardening off seedlings outside. There’s no heat, but the plastic can keep seedlings from frosts and freezes during the early spring.

For the past 4 weeks these snapdragon babies have been coddled: bottom watered to not disturb their delicate stems and leaves, basking in the perfect spectrum of light waves from our grow lights and living their best life at a perfect 72 degrees.

At this point I thought it was time to start giving them some tough love. So I made a plan.

Snapdragons are hardy and can handle cold temperatures. So I watched the forecast to find the perfect window to gradually expose these seedlings to 50s, then 40s, 30s and potentially high 20s. Out to the hoop house they went.

After two days of filling their bottom trays with water in the hoop house, I decided it was time to transition these babies to watering from above. I used our *seedling specific* watering wand hose attachment to give them a gentle sprinkle. The seedlings flopped over and I thought, they’ll bounce back in no time.

24 hours later, 75% of them were still bent over and mangled together at 90 degree angles.

Four days since the initial overhead shower, and they still have not recovered. Will they ever? The verdict is still out, but I’m hopeful, even if they have a case of baby snapdragon scoliosis.

And in case they don’t, thankfully last week we seeded a second round of snapdragons. This, my fellow flower lovers, is the most important lesson I’ve learned from gardening:

Just Keep Seeding.

Just Keep Seeding translates to everyday life too. It basically means: Don’t Give Up. Just because you have a setback, doesn’t mean you’re a failure, it’s just a challenge to overcome..

-Missing a month of yoga classes doesn’t mean that you should throw in the towel on your practice. Just Keep Seeding: sign up for a class and in the meantime, pull out your mat and put on a YouTube yoga video in the living room.

-Choosing to enjoy pasta and wine night with your girlfriends doesn’t mean you sabotaged your healthy eating habits. Just Keep Seeding: your habits are not ruined, plan to make a choice that’s healthier for you at your next meal.

-Missed the mark on your big pitch at the last work meeting? Just Keep Seeding: gather the feedback from people you trust and keep moving forward with your big ideas.

The thing is, we can’t change the past and we can’t control the future. Whatever you’re going through right now, Just Keep Seeding.