It’s very easy when posting on the internet to show only our successes – the beautiful children, pristine kitchens, the perfect meal, the Shetland lace shawl, the abundant garden… ah, yes, the abundant garden.
Well, it’s true that my garden and the limery do contain lots of lovely crops. Currently there’s lettuce, piles of raspberries and the promise of peppers, chillies, courgettes, lemons, limes, red currants, blueberries, apples, mange tout, kale, broccoli, ginger and potatoes…
BUT… there are also dead bean plants, dead rosemary, rocket and mizuna that flowered before we had a chance to eat any, the world’s saddest sage plant, brassicas munched by caterpillars and huge swathes of weeds.
So, Tammie – fear not, we all have gardening disasters… we just don’t often ‘fess up to them!
And, just to make you all smile, it takes lots of effort to get all those perfect shots of a life…
The Snail of Happiness 
Wild Daffodil
/ June 20, 2017Funny!!!! Loved the Instagram Husband. Thank you for sharing the tickly underbelly of your garden!
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The Snail of Happiness
/ June 20, 2017It’s all too easy to show off, but I think reality has value too!
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Wild Daffodil
/ June 20, 2017Is it showing off? I like the positivity of blogs, but yes, keeping it real is good too. 😉
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The Snail of Happiness
/ June 20, 2017Good and bad – I like sharing
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Wild Daffodil
/ June 20, 2017Yeah! Me too! ❤
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SusanK
/ June 20, 2017Instagram husband is wonderful. All the “curated” photos on IG make me laugh – as if we were constantly surrounded by shafts of sun, perfect little flower vases and steaming cups of tea with the tag dangling just so 😁. I much prefer the chaos of real life
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The Snail of Happiness
/ June 20, 2017Yes, the juxtaposition of success and failure adds to the great richness of real life… and anyway I use tea leaves and don’t like cut flowers, so I would be rubbish at Instagram!
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Annie
/ June 20, 2017I’m so jealous of all you have in the limery, and so look forward to having the same successes next year in the Peach House. We are so pleased with it so far, and glad we went with the heat reflective glass. It really cools down the lounge, we can have the patio door open and not have the room heated with excess sunlight. We have failures too – the salads are not doing so well this year and half the peas didn’t germinate for some strange reason. The spuds are very slow – I guess the spring was just too dry for them, though the ones in the containers did great. We also have root crops for the first time, but still can’t get radishes to work for us. One apple tree is to become firewood this winter, as it failed to produce a single flower, and has been on the threatened list for 3 years, but we do have flowers on the sharron fruit. XXX
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The Snail of Happiness
/ June 20, 2017I like the fact that there are no guarantees with gardening… we learn and we savour our successes. Oh and I couldn’t even photograph the parsnips which simply didn’t germinate!
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Annie
/ June 22, 2017Ah! Parsnips! As a result of one of my designs, we have now mastered parsnips. (She sais, fingers crossed for a good crop). We start them off in propagators, then house, greenhouse, then plant them out. Do it in modules to reduce root disturbance, then plant 5 to the square foot. Plenty of water. Hey presto! Parsnips! (And turnips, and hopefully swede too, but not checked on these). XX
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craftycreeky
/ June 20, 2017It must be confession day today, I’ve shared photos of all my weeds too! I always feel a bit guilty when people comment how beautiful my garden is, I can be pretty selective in the bits I show 🙂 Your allotment is looking pretty productive!
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The Snail of Happiness
/ June 20, 2017I must go and admire your weeds…
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shellssells
/ June 20, 2017SO TRUE! We’ve lost, just this year, a rain tree and a witch hazel. We also lost a fothergilla, though we were able to replace that one free of charge, and the new one is doing very well. Mr. Ink pulled what he thought was a weed, but was one of his own double balloon flowers, and I pulled what I thought was a weed but was one of his Missouri Evening Primroses. The primrose survived, the double balloon flower did not. I was ashamed, and didn’t take ANY pictures of those gardening failures. I also have a bunch of ranunculus that look like they aren’t going to make it, though the ones I put in different pots look pretty good. And, I managed to accidentally save a bunch of caladium by not cleaning out my pots when I put those pots in the garage. I planted new plants this year, and now also have caladium coming up.
Basically, gardening is a funny mystery. We can do everything right and have great or poor results. We can do everything wrong, and have great or poor results. But it’s a mystery that’s endlessly fascinating!
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The Snail of Happiness
/ June 20, 2017You are so right. I know people who want to be certain that the things they plant will grow and give up straight away if they don’t, but that’s part of the joy to me. I love trying to cultivate a plant that’s hard. I seem to be the death of rosemary plants, but every year I buy a new one and try again… one day I’ll work out how to get them to love me!
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Laurie Graves
/ June 20, 2017Great points! No one’s life is perfect, that’s for sure, and as for gardens. Well, don’t get me started 😉 Especially about one bed, dry part sun/ part shade, afternoon sun, plenty of holes, lots of failures. And that Instagram Husband clip is a hoot!
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The Snail of Happiness
/ June 20, 2017I’m wondering whether to have a regular post on ‘what plants died this month’!
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Laurie Graves
/ June 20, 2017😉
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thecontentedcrafter
/ June 20, 2017Ha, I loved the Instagram Husband – ‘We used to eat our food, now we just take pictures of it’ I kind of feel that way about Instagram in general. I so like seeing the pics of your lush garden, I can see dead plants around here any time 🙂
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The Snail of Happiness
/ June 20, 2017I wish I could share the produce with you as well as the pictures!
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thecontentedcrafter
/ June 21, 2017What a lovely thought 🙂 I feast on your pictures – it is sooo cold here today!
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painterwrite
/ June 20, 2017Hmm..at first I thought, “oh wow, she really is human,” but I bet the truth is you tiptoed into someone else’s garden and took photos of their plant disasters. 😜😜😜
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arlingwoman
/ June 20, 2017LOL the Instagram Husband! Who would have thought? Well, last year, there was a time I figured people might stop reading my blog if I didn’t say something nice about the annus horribilis of garden years. That pepper is bigger than my peppers. It must lead a better life.
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anne54
/ June 21, 2017How reassuring that your garden has dead things in it! But I am sure that if we all came to visit we would ooohhh and aaahhh over the beautiful peppers and raspberries and apples, and still ignore the ‘world’s saddest sage plant’. We look for the positives, not the messiness. In my garden I celebrate the things that DO thrive, and try to ignore the messy areas, overgrown correas and the dead bushes until I have the time to deal with them! Until that happens, and they are way down on the list of things to do, I will happily ignore them, both in photos and in real life!
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anne54
/ June 21, 2017Loved the Instagram husband too!
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Creative Crafts DIY
/ June 21, 2017Nice garden
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katechiconi
/ June 21, 2017Gardening is like an analogy for life. It can’t all be a stream of successes, we have different talents and skills, we all have bad patches, and small successes give us just as much pleasure as big ones. Rosemary and sage hate me, but basil is my best friend, also ginger, lemongrass and capsicums. I’ve given up fighting the grasshoppers, though, and anything that doesn’t volunteer and survive despite them doesn’t even get a look in 🙂
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crawcraftsbeasties
/ June 21, 2017Hahaha! Instagram Husband! 😂 This was a fun post, although hopefully there won’t be too many more gardening mishaps for you to document this year. I have an interesting one myself – a dying mint plant!! Yes, you read that right… On that note, maybe we can start an alternative social network called Unstagram, where we share real life in all its lumpy, messy glory? 🤔
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The Snail of Happiness
/ June 21, 2017Unstagram – I love it!
My mum’s mint died a couple of years ago. We never found out why, but we were able to provide her with plenty of replacement plants which seem to be doing fine.
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crawcraftsbeasties
/ June 22, 2017Hmmm… Maybe mine is just a dud plant. It’s never really seemed to thrive. I might see if my parents have one I can “borrow”…
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Sharon
/ June 21, 2017If your rocket flowers, you can still make a delicious pesto from it. The taste that is overpowering in the fresh herb mellows nicely when blended up with oil, a few walnuts and a bit of lemon peel.
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The Snail of Happiness
/ June 21, 2017I might try that… although Mr Snail hates pesto, so it’s something for when he’s away
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nanacathy2
/ June 21, 2017Instagram husband, love it, but blokes are just as bad. Yesterday we were having coffee, two blokes sat down, one of their phones rang, ten minutes chat, man looking self important, companion hacked off. Phone call ends, one minutes talking to each other, other chaps phone rings, he looks self important having a really important phone call, other chap starts playing games. Phone call ends, both chaps fiddle with phones . Turn the darn thinngs off and live a little.
I think its good to share the ups and downs of life, especially if there is a happy ending!
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The Snail of Happiness
/ June 21, 2017I really dislike mobile phones for exactly the situation you have described. Mr Snail and I never have ours switched on unless we want to make a call.
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Emma
/ June 21, 2017Haha I had a good giggle at the video! And I think it’s important to show that sometimes, things are not picture perfect. Success does taste sweeter if you have known failure too and not given up 😊
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The Snail of Happiness
/ June 22, 2017And just to add insult to injury – a mole hill has appeared and the roots of one of the surviving beans has been pushed to the surface. It will be a miracle, never mind sweet, if I get any beans this year!
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Emma
/ June 22, 2017Oh that’s just bad timing! It’s probably because you have lovely soft soil there, less work for them to make their hole!
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Born To Organize
/ June 22, 2017What a terrific post and oh how true! I’m laughing at your Instagram Husband clip, too. Thank you for sharing your successes and challenges and thank you, too, for the laugh.
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The Snail of Happiness
/ June 23, 2017So glad to make you laugh… a friend sent me the clip a while ago and I’ve been intending to share it for ages.
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Born To Organize
/ June 27, 2017It’s delightful. I’m smiling again thinking about it!
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San
/ June 23, 2017Loved the video really made me smile ❤️
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The Snail of Happiness
/ June 23, 2017me too!
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insearchofitall
/ June 26, 2017This is too funny all the way around. I shoot my photos very carefully then crop so no one can see the mess in my garden area. I feel like such a fraud when I see other’s photos. And the Instagram husband was hilarious. When did the need to be photograph change. I almost never wanted my photo taken and still rarely do.
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The Snail of Happiness
/ June 26, 2017I’m with you on that – I really don’t like being photographed, which is why there are so few pictures of me on this blog.
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katythenightowl
/ August 26, 2017I have to admit that I love your ‘failures’, as they make me feel so much better about mine! 🙂
We didn’t even bother taking pics of the garden this year, as my roses and sweetpeas (which usually give us a riot of colour – and scent) were a dismal failure! 😦
I love the Instagram Husband thing, but couldn’t even imagine Bob having the patience to be one! Lol
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