Easy Gardening: Just Throw the Darn Seeds Out There

Those are the words of my dear friend Kerensa. And, it's exactly how she gardens.

Her yard is ab-so-lutely magical. With railroad ties, rocks and tons of colorful, water-loving plants, the woman even makes her front ditch* look like she wanted it there all along. Her father was a landscaper. I figure she knows what she's talking about.

I, on the other hand, am known to kill every indoor plant I've ever had. I'm forever defending myself against such charges from my husband. "I keep children alive, not plants," I contest with my head held high. My front ditch had cat tails in it for years.

So, naturally, I wanted to heed Kerensa's advice.

Not because I didn't trust her completely, but because I just invested a small fortune in seed packs, I conducted my own quasi, so-not-an-expert experiment first.  Here are my completely non-scientific results: 

Scenario 1: Just as I've always done, I nursed the baby seedlings growing on my sunny window sills since the beginning of spring. After all danger of frost had passed, I transplanted them all to the garden area in my backyard, watered, and treated as usual. 

Scenario 2: I took the extra seeds (and I always have them...they give you so many...you can't possibly use them unless your entire yard is a farm) and scattered them in somewhat organized fashion in a dirt patch just outside my kitchen door. I watered them and treated them as I did my other green offspring. 


Results:  Wouldn't you know it? Hands down, the darn scattered seeds from Scenario 2 outperformed the pampered, window-hogging, messy seedlings from Scenario 1!

So, there you have it.

All I know, and it's not much, is I like to avoid wasting time. If I don't have to invest time, energy, and space on my window sills to get great produce from the garden, I won't. It's Easy Street for me. I'll take that route anytime.

How 'bout you? Do you tend to take Easy Street or Proper Place? Do you garden? Do you have your own experiment to share or one you'd like me to conduct? Do you just throw the darn seeds out there? 

* A front ditch is an unattractive path--sometimes filled with stone, sometimes covered by grass--carved into the front yards of all those homes in our community without sewers. It guides run-off water to a reservoir, which in my case, is a small lake, from which no one eats the fish.